MEXICO CITY (El Universal).— After the 2023-2024 winter season that favored Mexican tourism, the results of the summer that is about to end indicate an evident slowdown, warned Braulio Arsuaga, president of the National Tourism Business Council (CNET).
He said the decline in tourism is due to various factors, such as weak promotion of tourism in the country, the image caused by insecurity, as well as strong competition from other destinations and the lack of supply in the domestic market.
At a press conference, Arsuaga expressed the concern of the private sector regarding the end of the year with the 2024-2025 winter season, since, if the above factors prevail, the Mexican tourism industry will face great challenges. If the internal challenges are added to the uncertainty associated with the judicial reform and the formation of the Congress of the Union, as well as the weakness of public finances and the impact on costs due to new labor benefits, “the scenario becomes even more complicated,” he commented.
He added that external situations such as the volatility of global financial markets and the slowdown of the US economy, which increases the complexity of the tourism landscape, cannot be ignored.
The lack of support for a relevant tourism policy has caused the tourism GDP to gradually but steadily decline, said Francisco Madrid, director of the Anahuac Cancun Advanced Research Center for Sustainable Tourism (STARC).
In 2009, the share of tourism GDP in relation to the total was 9.6%, while in 2023 it was reduced to 8.4%. In line with the above, he highlighted that there is also a deterioration in the country brand ranking, since Mexico occupied the thirteenth position in 2017 while today it is in eighteenth place.
Negative impact
He added that another worrying indicator is the Visit Mexico website, whose unfortunate management has impacted the loss of visibility of Mexican tourist destinations and products.
In August 2022, there were nearly 3.9 million monthly organic visitors, and at present, the number barely exceeds 64 thousand. This lack of interest is reflected in the results of international air tourism to Mexico, whose year-on-year variation in April of this year was 3.4% and in July it fell to -3.7%.
Madrid also noted that some of the airports that were in high demand in the past are showing a significant decline in international passenger volume during June and July compared to 2023.
Cozumel fell -13.4%, Cancun -9.6%, Puerto Vallarta -3.4% and Los Cabos -2.4%. Mexico is expected to decline in the world tourism rankings.
#Slowdown #Mexican #tourism
2024-09-20 15:52:15
