Popular Mexican tourist destination Los Cabos is losing around US$650,000 a week as the new A/H1N1 flu strain frightens visitors, local officials told media on Monday.

The resort has suffered cancellations that emptied 3,200 hotel rooms, the town's director of tourism, Miroslav Bautista, told media, even though Baja California Sur, the state where the resort is located, does not have a single case of the flu which has killed 27 people in Mexico.

Bautista said that, separately, 19 cruise ships have cancelled stop offs in the port of Cabo San Lucas, which represents 40,000 people who will not visit the area.

"Hotels, restaurants, bars, discos and small businesspeople have all felt the effects of cancellations and postponements," he said.

Mexico's government reported 727 cases of the disease across the country, making Mexico the hardest hit nation of the 21 countries the World Health Organization says now hosts the disease. Even so, six of Mexico's 32 states have no signs of the new flu.

(Xinhua News Agency May 5, 2009)