The Yucatan state government has doubled the entry fee for foreigners entering Chichén Itzá, and tour operators are in an uproar.
Tickets for tourists from outside Mexico rose from 242 pesos (roughly US$12) to 480 pesos (US$24), effective today.
The increase apparently blindsided tour operators and wholesalers, some of whom had already pre-sold tour packages to the archaeological site.
Tourist sector representatives warned that the price hike will hurt business for all concerned.
In a letter delivered to the Board of Government and Political Coordination of the State, the presidents of the Tourism Business Council (CETUR), the Association of Tourism Promotion Agencies (AAPROTUY) and the Mexican Association of Hotels (AMHY), Jaime Solís Garza, Armando Espinosa Casares and Hector Navarrete Medina, respectively, said that tour operators and travel agencies signed annual agreements with national and international wholesalers before the end of the year.
They face an economic hardship if they are forced to absorb the price increase.
The price hike applies to the vast majority of the site’s visitors, 90 percent of whom come from outside Mexico. Of those, about 90 percent come from Quintana Roo.
Solis Garza vowed that if the increase is not reversed, tour operators and travel agencies will instead take Quintana Roo’s tourists to Tulum’s archaeological zone, where the price of entry is 75 pesos per person.
