Although Guadalajara is a tourist town with some 3.6 million foreign visitors passing through it each year, English is not widely spoken in the downtown area or at the airport.
“Guadalajara is somewhat deficient in English speakers,” said Gustavo Staufert Buclon, director of the City’s Office of Visitors and Conventions.
In the city’s tourism kiosks, of the 18 people who work them, only three are bilingual.
“The weakness is worst at the airport,” said Miguel Angel Fong, president of the Jalisco Hotel Association. “The tourism modules don’t have English-speakers working at night,” he noted. According to GAP, the company administering the airport, in any one shift, one-in-three workers are bilingual.
Taxi drivers at the airport also lack a good understanding of English for the most part.
“When tourists are foreigners, we look for the drivers who more-or-less understand some English, but the majority don’t speak it and the drivers don’t get paid more if they do,” said the operator of one traditional taxi.