Rendering courtesy of FR-EE

Arguably the biggest news to come out of Mexico City in quite some time is the announcement that construction will commence next year on a new state-of-the-art international airport that, when finished, will be able to accommodate 120 million passengers a year.

“The new international airport is planned to meet the needs of the country for at least the next 50 years,” said Mauricio Reyna, director for tourism promotion of the Mexico City Ministry of Tourism. Reyna said the first stage of the airport will be ready by 2020 with three landing strips and capacity to receive more than 50 million passengers a year. When the airport is completed it will have six landing strips. There is no word yet on when the facility, which will be located next to the existing airport, will be completed.

This is no ordinary airport, mind you. “The design of the airport was elaborated by the British architect Norman Foster, one of the most famous architects in the world and the renowned Mexican architect Fernando Romero, the architect behind the Soumaya Museum, the Plaza Carso and the new Inbursa Aquarium in Mexico City,” Reyna said, adding that Foster is responsible for the design of the airports in Beijing, Hong Kong, Kuwait and Panama City. 

“The airport will take the form of an x, which makes space for more boarding gates as is seen in the airports of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, Nairobi in Kenya and Inchon in South Korea,” said Reyna. “Various elements, reminiscent of national Mexican symbols, such as the eagle, the snake and the sun, will be incorporated into the design and architecture of the airport.”

The new airport project will also include measures to prevent and reduce pollution and noise due to air traffic, he said.

When the airport is operational, the area occupied by the current airport will be used for schools, hospitals and green areas, including what Reyna referred to as a “metropolitan forest.”

In tourism developments, Reyna said Mexico City is targeting high-end leisure travelers between the ages of 25 and 65 who are technologically savvy and with interests that include wellness, gastronomy, culture, luxury, shopping, fashion and history.

“We are especially interested in attracting the LGBT and the second and third generations of the Mexican-American market,” he said. “And, as Mexico City is to a very large extent a business destination, we are also interested in encouraging the many business travelers visiting the city to extend their stay with one, two or several days for leisure.”

In 2013, Reyna said Mexico City received 2.4 million international tourists, with 39 percent coming from the U.S. Twenty-seven percent of visitors hailed from South America, 20 percent from Europe, 6.2 percent from Central America 6.2 percent and 5 percent from Asia.   

“During the first seven months of 2014 the figures for the tourism sector have surpassed their levels for the same period last year,” Reyna said. “Hotel occupancy reached 64.6 percent, which is the highest since 2007 and 3.3 percent higher than same period last year.”

Particularly striking is the robust growth in the number of international tourists. All told, 1.4 million international tourists stayed in hotels in the city during the first seven months of this, which is a six-year record high, and 7.4 percent higher than the same interval last year. 

“All these positive results are a direct consequence of the efforts of integration, diversification and commercialization of the tourism product Mexico City has to offer – such as efforts to increase hotel occupancy during weekends and to strengthen our long-term collaboration with our national and international strategic partners,” Reyna said. “We expect to see the same positive growth tendency in Mexico City’s tourism sector in 2015.”