Foreigners lose interest in Mexico

1022

Decrease arrivals to the airports of Cancun, Huatulco, Acapulco, Zihuatanejo and Manzanillo

The arrival of travelers by air to five of the eight main beach destinations in the country registered negative rates in the first two months of the year.

Such is the case of Cancún, whose airport receives more foreigners than the terminal of Mexico City.

In the first two months of the year, seven thousand 603 international visitors arrived at the Caribbean airport less than in the same period last year, which meant their first fall for that period at least since 2012.

Figures from the Immigration Policy Unit of the Ministry of the Interior (Segob) indicate that airports of sun and beach destinations such as Huatulco, Zihuatanejo, Acapulco and Manzanillo also decreased the reception of foreigners during the first two months of this 2019.

This trend was noticed in the recent National Tourism Forum by specialists and entrepreneurs of the sector, who attributed it to factors such as sargassum on the beaches of the region and the extinction of the Tourism Promotion Council of Mexico (CPTM).

Julián Balbuena, president of Best Day Travel Group, and Alejandro Zozaya, CEO of Apple Leisure Group, announced that in the first quarter of the year the number of airplane seats from the United States to the Mexican Caribbean decreased 10 percent. The indicator grows 15 percent in the case of destinations such as Puerto Rico and Jamaica.

Source: Datatur and Migration Policy Unit of the Segob / Graphic: Luis Calderón Guerra

Before the Tourist Tianguis in Acapulco, Pablo Azcárraga, president of the National Tourism Business Council (CNET), said that the cancellation of resources for the promotion of Mexico as a destination abroad by the federal government caused, for example, hotels to have 15 percent less profits in the first quarter of the year.

The entrepreneur predicted that these factors will cause the tourist GDP to grow only 1.6 percent this year, after reaching rates of three percent.

Not all Mexican beaches had a decrease in the number of international visitors. Los Cabos, Puerto Vallarta and Mazatlan showed more influx in the arrival of foreigners.

Puerto Vallarta, where 96 percent of the air visitors are of foreign origin, maintained an upward rhythm in the arrival of international tourists in the first two months of the year since 2014.

In Mazatlan, the arrival of foreigners by plane continues its growth since 2013, and Los Cabos, where 98 percent of the tourists who arrived by air in 2018 were international, showed its fourth consecutive year of growth in this segment.

Source: el sol de mexico

The Mazatlan Post