The northern border of the Riviera Nayarit, Mexico's booming Pacific beach destination, has been officially extended to include the entire coast of the state of Nayarit, but don't expect its long stretches of shore to be developed anytime soon.

Much of the northern area of Nayarit is made up of vast areas of mangroves and wetlands that are unsuitable for building, said Richard Zarkin, spokesman for the Riviera Nayarit Convention and Visitors Bureau.

"I'm pretty sure it will remain natural, and most of the tourism will be ecotourism, because it is a prime area for bird-watching," he said.

The Riviera Nayarit resort region was officially launched by the state's government in the spring of 2007. It started with 112 miles of coastline from the southernmost point at the resort area of Nuevo Vallarta just north of Puerto Vallarta Airport (roughly, the boundary of the states of Nayarit and Jalisco, the state where Puerto Vallarta is located) and stretched north to the colonial town of San Blas.

This fall, Nayarit Gov. Ney Gonzalez announced that the boundary of the tourism destination would extend north another 80 miles, from San Blas to the border with the state of Sinaloa, so that it covers the entire coastline of Nayarit state.

Development to the north

The announcement of the extension comes as major resort development plans for Sinaloa are taking shape.

Fonatur, the Mexican government agency that was behind the development of Cancun, Ixtapa and Los Cabos, has marked the part of Sinaloa state south of Mazatlan as the location of Mexico's next megaresort.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon has said that through Fonatur, the government plans to invest some $500 million in the destination and that he expects the project would attract another $7 billion in private investment.

The as-yet-unnamed destination in the area of Teacapan would cover seven miles of beaches and include 33,000 hotel rooms, condominiums, a marina and golf courses.

The announcement prompted Riviera Nayarit tourism officials to rethink their destination's boundaries.

"With the announcement of this big monster in the north, we wanted to make sure that our identity remains," said Zarkin. "We live in the shadow of Puerto Vallarta, and that is one of our biggest challenges. We don't want to live in the shadow of the new development in Sinaloa."

As plans for the mammoth resort progress, Zarkin said Riviera Nayarit intends to retain its low-density character.

"We're getting big-name hotel brands, but we don't intend to compete with big developments," Zarkin said. "We have rules that limit hotels to low density to lessen the impact on the environment. And we intend to keep the focus on small, luxury hotels."

Meanwhile, development at Riviera Nayarit continues to boom, with another $350 million committed to 35 projects across the area's four major sections: Nuevo Vallarta, Punta Mita, Litibu (which is an extension of Punta Mita) and Flamingos.

Three resorts have opened in the area recently: the St. Regis in Punta Mita, a 120-room hotel with lavish suites and the area's second Jack Nicklaus signature golf course; the Riu Palace Pacifico, an all-inclusive property in Nuevo Vallarta with 484 suites; and Dreams Villa Magna Nuevo Vallarta, a 229-room, all-inclusive resort.

Several more properties are under construction and scheduled to open this year, including Dreams Punta Mita Resort & Spa, a 320-room property with a Greg Norman 18-hole golf course; a 437-room Secrets Punta de Mita; a 456-room Iberostar hotel in Litibu; and a 162-room Marival Condo Resort in Nuevo Vallarta.

In addition, investors have put about $118 million in tourism developments in Punta Raza, an undeveloped area north of Punta Mita. Plans call for eight hotels, 950 houses, a golf course and a marina. The first phase, including a Park Hyatt and Grand Hyatt properties, are scheduled to open in Punta Raza in 2011.

Riviera Nayarit has benefited from a $1.5 billion investment in the region's tourism facilities and infrastructure since 2005 from the Mexican government. The major project in that investment is construction of a four-lane highway between Tepic in the northernmost part of Nayarit and the Riviera Nayarit that will help connect major population centers to the resort area. The first section to be built is between Tepic and San Blas and is expected to shorten the driving time between the two towns to about 20 minutes.

Riviera Nayarit has a total of 13,000 hotel rooms. It reported the highest hotel occupancy rates in Mexico for the months of January, February, March and July 2008, with occupancy topping 79%.