Campeche hotels get ready for 1,400 Ironman athletes this weekend

Campeche is about to be inundated with over a thousand Ironman athletes. Photo: Getty

San Francisco de Campeche, Campeche — The president of the Association of Hotels and Motels admitted that the tourist trade requires higher quality and better services, but quickly added that “we are not failing at all.”

In an interview with La Jornada Maya, Daniel Lopez announced that current hotel occupancy is at 72 percent as a result of a private event carried out by Pemex and the Ministry of Health.

But he predicted that for the coming week the demand will increase to 85 percent or more because this capital will be the venue for the second consecutive year of the Ironman international sports event, where more than 1,400 competitors from more than 30 countries are expected.

He denied that at the moment there is a shortage of rooms in the capital.

But he added that a Spanish-based international hotel chain will soon add to the 1,300 rooms in Campeche City’s inventory.

He has also previously admitted that Campeche needs to train people in English-language skills.

Campeche, about two-and-a-half hours southwest of Mérida, is smaller and quieter than the Yucatecan capital, and has similar colonial architecture.

The neighboring state’s lack of tourists, however, was recently extolled in a Canadian newspaper’s travel story. The capital’s historic center was called “extravagantly pretty.”

With information from La Jornada Maya

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