Tijuana Mexico

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Tijuana is a Mexican municipality located at the north westernmost region of the Baja California Peninsula, making it one of the immediate neighboring Mexican municipalities located at the southern border of San Diego, California. This extremely close proximity between the bordering areas of Tijuana and San Diego has lead to many significant economic influences to Tijuana.

Tourism is one of the principal sources of income in Tijuana, Baja California. Everyday, more than 300,000 people cross the international border between San Diego and Tijuana by driving in one of the two border crossing roads or by walking on foot. What immediately welcomes these border crossing tourists are hundreds of restaurants, motels, shops, nightclubs, and thousands of sidewalk and street vendors and stalls. Tourists can buy anything from souvenir sombreros to liquor of all brands and kinds.

Tijuana’s bars and nightclubs actually has a very strong pull towards tourists and vacationers. Some famous nightlife hot spots are the Avenida Revolucion and Zona Norte. Here, tourists can spend their hard earned money on alcoholic drinks and club entrance fees. Since the legal drinking age in Mexico is 18, Tijuana’s bars and pubs find themselves busy entertaining high school and college students during summer vacations, holidays and spring breaks.

A portion of Tijuana’s economic earnings also comes from its sex trade. Tijuana’s many relight districts are lined with strip clubs and gay bars of all kinds that open their doors at the break of dusk. For those who are not content with going to strip clubs, they can also choose to pick-up a prostitute posing in the sidewalks. Prostitution is actually legal in Mexico, so that thousands of prostitutes can freely choose to haunt Tijuana’s red light districts to ply their trade to visiting tourists.

Aside from adult entertainment and the couple of beaches in Tijuana, the cheaper costs of many Tijuana services and products compared to those in the United States are also another reason for tourists to cross the border. You can find anything from cheaper auto detailing services to affordable plastic surgery procedures in Tijuana, Baja California.

A larger industry that is a source of income for Tijuana’s economy are the hundreds of assembly plants (also called maquiladoras) located there. Because of the large number of workers in Tijuana whose labors are available in exchange for wages that are much lower than those in the United States, many foreign companies choose to build their assembly plants and factories in Tijuana. Toyota, Kodak, Sony, Panasonic, Pioneer, and Samsung are just some of the foreign companies that chose to build maquiladoras in Tijuana.

Tijuana’s economy is also significantly boosted by the income of more than 30,000 workers who live in Tijuana but work in San Diego. These Tijuana residents cross the international border on a daily basis in order to attend work in San Diego where the minimum wage is higher and there are more work benefits.

The relationship between these two cities existing in two separate countries is very beneficial to Tijuana’s economy. Tourists and visitors from San Diego and other places spend a whopping $700 million every year in Tijuana, while the maquiladoras industry contributes more than $300,000 to Tijuana’s economic income.