Over the long weekend to commemorate the birth of Benito Juárez, several beach resorts across Mexico saw a considerable spike in hotel bookings from domestic travelers.
The state of Quintana Roo says it received well over 100,000 tourists and achieved slightly over 50% hotel capacity in Cancún and Playa del Carmen.
Other popular tourism destinations such as Acapulco, Puerto Vallarta and Los Cabos had similar occupancy rates.
Mexico’s national hotel association has said that they are pleased with the numbers, but that occupancy will have to continue to improve to safeguard the hundreds of thousands of jobs dependant on the tourism hospitality industry.
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Industry analysts speculate that this past long-weekend bodes well for the upcoming Easter holiday season, but that it is imperative that authorities, business owners, and tourists remain vigilant against COVID-19.
Last month, hotels in Cancún and Riviera Maya were allowed to fill their hotels to 60% capacity.
The doubling of allowed occupancy was justified by authorities by pointing out that Quintana Roo now stands at “yellow” on the national epidemiological traffic light.
Despite the recent improvements, the COVID-19 pandemic is believed to have cost the Mexican tourism industry tens of thousands of jobs. Mexico’s business council calculates that losses to the tourism sector due to COVID-19 stand at $US13 billion for 2020 alone.
