It is very likely that many national tourists seeing that Acapulco was not available have opted for Merida
Although the number of cruises decreased compared to 2022, the end of this year was higher than the number of tourists who arrived by air to Yucatan, reported the director of Regional Airports of Grupo ASUR, Héctor Navarrete Muñoz.
Meanwhile, David Escalante, president of the Association of Tourism Promotion Agencies of Yucatan, December yielded positive figures as normally happens in this season. “I would dare to say that it was better than December 2022. It is very likely that many national tourists seeing that Acapulco was not available have opted for Merida but we do not have a metric of how many may have arrived in the state for that issue,” he said.
Although the hotel sector continues to count figures on the occupancy recorded in the past Christmas holidays, its president, Juan José Martín Pacheco estimates a slight increase in visitors.
According to information provided by airport authorities, the number of passengers at the airport exceeded by more than 19 percent the figures of last year, going from 3 million 92 thousand passengers to 3 million 702 thousand.
The director of ASUR, explained that the international airport of Merida has the capacity to receive up to 4.2 million passengers in a year, and the great potential that the state is having will surely allow to continue with this expansion, he added.
Currently at the airport of the Yucatecan capital, ten airlines work that offer their services to the following destinations: Bajío, Guadalajara, CDMX, Monterrey, Oaxaca, Puebla, Querétaro, Santa Lucía, Tijuana, Toluca, Tuxtla, Veracruz and Villahermosa, and 6 international routes, Toronto, Havana, Guatemala, Dallas, Houston and Miami, with an occupancy higher than 93% in the national routes, and in the international ones to an average of 83 percent. “
It should be noted that the tourism sector represents 11.1 percent of the GDP in Yucatan.
According to data from the National Port System Administration of Progreso, the tourism of cruises arriving in Progreso decreased by 31.3 percent, going from 99 in 2022, to 68 at the end of the previous year.
As for the number of cruise passengers, the reduction was 6.6 percent, going from 252,238 in 2022 to 235,579 last year.
However, for this year, 116 cruise arrivals are scheduled, 38 more than those scheduled in 2023.
As for the ancestral archaeological zone of Chichén Itzá, its director, the archaeologist José Osorio said that the visits to this Mayan city exceeded expectations.
“There were days when they registered about 17 thousand visits when the average is 10 thousand, however there are no specific data that prove if the passage of Hurricane Otis through the state of Guerrero caused the tourists to turn to the Mexican southeast.
Source: El Sol de Mexico
