Mexico City ? With spring break coming and college students making plans, tourism officials in Acapulco are worried that the resort city’s image may now include bloody shootouts along with the beach, bikinis and beer parties.

In recent days that image includes this: Four drug traffickers lying dead in the street just five minutes from the hotel zone. Town merchants marching in the streets against drug-related violence. The mayor declaring that he is scared.

President Vicente Fox has sent dozens of federal police agents into Mexico’s second-largest tourist resort after a downtown gun battle between police and drug traffickers 10 days ago, as city and state officials have pleaded for help in stopping a turf battle between two violent drug cartels. Officials warn that the situation could deteriorate to the level of drug violence that has racked Nuevo Laredo and other border towns, even as state officials try to reassure tourists that the violence has not targeted vacationers and their visits will be safe.

“These are lamentable acts that could damage the image of any place,” said Agustin Serrano, director general of tourism planning for the state of Guerrero. “These are isolated incidents, but nevertheless, they are a real concern.”

Serrano said Acapulco, which is becoming as popular as Cancun for spring breakers, expected an influx of more than 35,000 college students beginning at the end of this month.

But the recent shootout crystallized concerns about drug traffickers in Acapulco and the support they may be getting from corrupt local police. It came as U.S. officials have been more vocal than usual in expressing concerns about drug violence across Mexico.

John Negroponte, the U.S. director of national intelligence, cited Mexico at a congressional hearing Thursday among a list of countries in which drug traffickers threaten to undermine the government. The other countries were Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Haiti and Jamaica.