Fewer visitors at Mayan archaeological sites and museums in Yucatan

Photo: Getty

Fewer tourists are visiting Yucatan’s are visiting archaeological zones and official museums this year, said the National Institute of Anthropology and History.

By June, INAH counted nearly 256,000 visitors, which is 15,562 fewer tourists than last year at this time. This reverses a gradual, upward trend that began in 2013.

Chichen Itza remains by far Yucatan’s big daddy of tourist sites, representing 148,000 paid visits, 57.6% of INAH’s ticket sales, so far in 2019. That’s despite a hefty rise in ticket prices — doubled for foreigners — this year.

And that doesn’t count the even larger number of visitors on Sundays, when nationals enter for free, senior passes and class trips. A tourist on TripAdvisor advises other travelers to avoid crowded Chichen Itza on Sundays.

Uxmal is a distant second in popularity, with 5,374 paid visitors, followed by Ek Balam, 4,538; Dzilbilchaltun and its Museum of the Mayan People, 1,894; Xcambo, 1,306, and the Mayapan area, 1,259.

Other archaeological sites that have been visited by foreign tourists, but to a lesser extent, have been Oxkintok, Acanceh, Ake, Izamal, Kabah, Loltun, Sayil, Balamcanche, Labna and Xlapak.

The Palacio Canton in Merida has been visited by 760 ticket-buying foreigners. The Pinacoteca del Estado “Juan Gamboa Guzmán,” in the Centro, has not received any visits, neither from nationals nor from visitors from other countries.

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