"There's never been a better time to plan a meeting or incentive in Mexico," says Mark Benson, vice president of North American sales for Grupo Posadas, the largest hotel company in Latin America. Benson says the media's appetite for headline news blew this year's H1N1 influenza scare all out of proportion.

"The flu showed up in Mexico City," he says, "not the resort areas, where there were no issues to begin with." Now he's hoping to get back to business as usual. In the meantime, prices have never been lower than they are right now. "This year gives planners an incredible chance to raise return on investment," Benson says, "all while getting the benefits of the higher end of the market. At the same time planners can line up next year's events at this year's prices."

April's news of the H1N1 flu's outbreak in Mexico City led thousands of would-be visitors to cancel travel plans to the capital city. The initial outbreak spawned more than a week of headline media frenzy. The number of new flu cases peaked on April 26. The next day, the U.S. State Department issued an official warning against nonessential travel not only to Mexico City but also to anywhere else in the country.

Airlines swiftly cut back on flights, some allowing passengers to change trip dates without penalty. Cruise ships abruptly stopped calling on Mexican ports. Hotel occupancies plummeted. In Cancún, already suffering from the effects of the recession, occupancy dropped from a low 77 percent down to about 23 percent by the first few days of May, according to Marisa Setien, executive director of the Cancún Hotel Association.

Some hotel owners closed sister properties in order to consolidate the reduced number of clients at others. Many laid off staff. Some were so eager for customers, and confident their guests would be safe, they advertised a "flu-free guarantee" that promised free future vacations in the next-to-impossible event anyone caught the H1N1 virus during a stay.

Then, on May 15, the United States lifted its three-week advisory against nonessential travel to Mexico. The U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had reported a slowing of the outbreak in Mexico. Increasingly, cases diagnosed in the United States and elsewhere resulted from transmission within those countries rather than in individuals returning from Mexico. By May 25, 46 countries had officially reported 12,515 cases of H1N1 infection, including more than half in the United States. By June 3, more than 70 countries and all 50 U.S. states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia had reported cases, although overall activity of the virus was decreasing in the United States, according to the CDC.

On June 11, the World Health Organization raised its alert level to Phase 6, indicating a bona fide pandemic while at the same time stressing that the new designation resulted from the spread of the virus rather than its severity. By June 15, 76 countries had reported 35,928 cases, including 6,241 cases in Mexico and 13,217 in the United States.

The severity of the disease fell far short of initial worst-case scenarios laid out by the WHO and the CDC. Initial fears over any new flu strain's virulence are warranted. Mortality from the 1918–1919 Spanish influenza pandemic, for instance, is estimated at 20–100 million people. The Asian flu in 1957 caused 1 to 2 million deaths, and the Hong Kong flu in 1968 caused about 700,000. The H5N1 avian flu that emerged in Asia in 2003 killed about 60 percent of the humans infected by it. Thankfully, the symptoms of the H1NI strain proved to be relatively mild, in most cases no worse than the common seasonal flu.

To put things in perspective: The CDC estimates that about 5 to 20 percent of the U.S. population of 304,059,724 contracts the common seasonal flu each year, something between 1.5 and 6.8 million people. Of these, an average 200,000 end up hospitalized for flu-related complications. About 36,000 die. But nearly all of the people hit hard by either the common or the new H1N1 virus are either infants, elderly, or have underlying chronic health conditions such as heart disease, asthma, or diabetes.

As is the case with the common flu, bed rest will put most H1N1 sufferers back on their feet within a few days. Even better, the pharmaceutical company Novartis announced on June 12 that its vaccine against the H1N1 virus would be on the market by fall and widely available.

Today we know the symptoms of the H1N1 flu virus are generally mild, usually no worse than the common seasonal flu. We know there are far more cases outside of Mexico than in it. Nevertheless, the bad publicity left the Mexican travel industry, and Mexico itself, reeling.

The nation's economy took a huge financial hit. The flu could end up costing Mexico $2.3 billion, or about 0.3 percent of gross domestic product, according to government estimates. Tourism has long played a major role in the economy. In 2008, more than 18 million Americans visited Mexico, according to the Mexico Tourism Board. In an effort to regain those numbers, on May 25 Mexico's President Filipe Calderon launched a $91 million ad campaign aimed at bringing back the tourists. Already many tourism-related businesses, including hotels and airlines, were offering unprecedented deals in an effort to bring travelers back to Mexico. Online travel companies, for instance, saw the price of flight and hotel packages to Cozumel and Cancún plunge as much as 50 percent.

Of course the top-tier hotel companies like Grupo Posadas, with Fiesta Americana brand properties in all of Mexico's major resort areas, quote group prices individually, based on each group's own needs and the price set by competition in the marketplace. 

So, because of the near-hysteric publicity that caused so many to cancel their trips to Mexico this spring, now may be the best time in history to book meetings south of the border. The bargains are unbeatable. U.S. visitors are welcomed like kings and queens. As long as travelers remember the lessons their mothers taught them, like washing their hands often and practicing common sense, they can reap the benefits of today's once-in-a-lifetime deals and enjoy a safe, healthy, and productive trip to Mexico.

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