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With the summer season set to begin, Cancun is expecting to see 100 percent hotel occupancy and is already registering 82 percent before the season has even officially started. Tourism in the city and surrounding areas in the Riviera Maya have not seen much of a slow season at all this year, despite the major sargassum issue affecting the Mexican Caribbean. Now, as Covid cases are on the rise, it seems like nothing can keep the tourists away from the city, as the increase in Covid infections is not resulting in hotel cancelations either.
The millions of tourists that have vacationed in Cancun already this year have had to deal with the presence of excessive sargassum, not just on the beaches but in other areas such as cenotes as well. Cenotes are natural swimming holes formed in limestone rock that locals and visitors like to enjoy during the warm summer months when they want to get away from the packed beaches. Earlier in the year, a number of the area’s cenotes were closed to be cleaned, while others were simply not enjoyable due to the sargassum.
Other popular cities in the Riviera Maya don’t seem to be suffering from any of the issues plaguing the area this year either, as hotel occupancy rates are high all around. The overall occupancy rate for Quintana Roo as a whole was between 70-80 percent for last week. Quintana Roo is the state that is home to Cancun, Playa del Carmen, Tulum, Merida, and a number of other Mexican Caribbean tourist destinations.
Cancun International Airport is registering nearly 500 flights every day, even as flight cancelations are on the rise all over the world. More than 300 of those flights are coming from or going to international destinations. Many of the international flights are bringing in tourists from the U.S., Canada, and European countries.
According to recent reports Cancun International Airport is set to exceed well beyond the numbers seen prior to the pandemic, as the city has grown in popularity since it began. A lot of the reason for this has to do with the low level of restrictions that were implemented in Mexico while many other countries were shut down. Places like Cancun and Cozumel gave those that could work from home the opportunity to set up shop in destinations that made them feel like they were on vacation even while having to continue to work remotely.
That popularity in the Mexican Caribbean has continued to grow even after much of the world is free of pandemic restrictions at this point. Evidence of this can be seen in the numbers coming in from all aspects of the tourism sector. More daily flights at Cancun International Airport than ever, occupancy rates that have dropped only slightly here and there since the beginning of the year, and the bounce back in the economy since the pandemic began to wind down, all show that Cancun is the newest hotspot on the Mexican Caribbean coast.
In 2019, before the pandemic began, 22.4 million tourists vacationed in Cancun. This year it is expected that that number will be exceeded by the end of 2022. The summer rush has not even started yet and hotels are already near capacity and nearly 100 percent booked for the busiest summer months, indicating that all of the predictions will likely come true.
As more and more visitors travel to Cancun, the hotel industry is doing its best to keep up, with multiple new hotels set to open this year and more to come in 2023. While there are plenty of rooms to go around, those interested in visiting Cancun May want to plan early for their vacations in this ever-popular Mexican Caribbean destination.
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