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Multiple Factors Are Leaving Hotels And Restaurants With A Shortage Of Staff
Cancun’s surging popularity combined with several frustrating factors means you might find service a little slow on your next Cancun trip. Read on to help prepare you for what to expect.
Cancun is enjoying an outstanding summer thus far. With numbers currently projected to outdo pre-pandemic figures, it’s finally looking like all is well with the tourist industry once again. Or is it?
Unfortunately, Cancun’s astonishing rebound is being hampered by several problems that may impact your stay negatively. Understanding that the majority of these problems are out of the control of your hotel might just help you keep frustrations down if your find yourself waiting a little while longer than hoped for your room service or waiter.
Here are five reasons why your service might be slow in Cancun this summer.
Staffing Shortages
At the core of the travel industry’s woes across the world, not just in Cancun, are staffing shortage issues.
When the industry ground to a halt in 2020, hotel workers, flight attendants, cleaners, bartenders, and other workers were laid off in their thousands with businesses unable to pay their salaries while customers were unable to visit.
For the past two years, many of those workers, especially the skilled ones like bartenders and chefs, sought out other work. Most employees in Cancun had moved to the resort town for the sole purpose of working there, and immediately left to go back to their home state or seek employment elsewhere like Mexico City.
Now, with the tourists back in their millions, hotels and restaurants are struggling to find the manpower to replace those workers. Recent statistics suggest that 96% of all businesses are short-staffed in some respects. Recruitment fairs are underway across the country to find skilled young graduates to move to Cancun and get its operational capacity up to full speed again.
Construction Obstruction
Cancun is undergoing some major infrastructure projects in the coming months with the goal of modernizing what has been a struggling transport system. Although these are likely to be massively beneficial in the long run, the construction phase of said projects is slowing inner-city commutes to a snail’s pace.
Some of the main roads in Cancun are unusable as work continues, and a lack of planning means routing options are few and far between. The problem has become so pronounced that hotels in the area are allowing staff to arrive as late as sixty minutes to work if they are impacted by the construction.
Combined with already short staffing, guests should anticipate service being a little slower around shift changes as employees venture across the city.
Busy Airport = Busy Hotels
Travel has rebounded hard, there’s no avoiding it. Revenge travel, the term coined for exuberant trips taken in response to built-up demand over the pandemic, is very real, and Cancun is reaping the benefits.
Cancun International Airport has added a huge amount of flights in the past year. It’s now one of the most connected and busiest airports on the planet despite its comparatively small size. It’s regularly seeing over five hundred operations a day, with tourists streaming in from the US and elsewhere.
Hotels are often going to be full, especially during peak weekends and holidays, so don’t be surprised to see things slow down a little if you pick a particularly busy weekend. Rest assured your hotel is doing what it can to cover every base and do what you can to relax even if things aren’t moving as quickly as you’d like.
The (supply) chain is broken
As if staffing shortages weren’t enough, supply chains across the world are still struggling to reconnect and flow at their regular rate. It’s helped push global inflation sky-high, and it’s making some things much harder to find.
While hotels in Mexico generally have access to everything they need, there might be a few things that are a little harder to acquire, or more expensive, leaving staff scrambling to make ends meet for customers.
Hotels across Mexico and the Caribbean have reported running out of certain types of alcohol or foods, including basics like chicken that appear in so many dishes. When hotels are met with these sudden shortages, delays and changes to orders, menus, and services are likely.
Even in the public travel sector, the government is unable to produce enough buses to cope with demand as parts become more complicated to acquire
Combined, all of these reasons could lead to some delays in your service this summer. Do your best to expect some issues, and try not to get too frustrated if something goes wrong. The travel industry has been up against it for two years, and there are going to be some growing pains.
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