by Lacey Pfalz
Last updated: 10:50 AM ET, Thu August 14, 2025
Mexico’s Ministry of Tourism (SECTUR) has finished its first phase of a program designed to help its 177 Pueblos Mágicos, or Magical Towns, grow their tourism sustainably while benefitting the local communities.
The Pueblos Mágicos are specially designated towns and cities that demonstrate unique culture, cuisine, or history of Mexico. These include the town of Sayulita in Nayarit, Tulum in Quintana Roo and Loreto in Baja California Sur, among many others.
The program to develop them further is called the National Strategy to Strengthen Magical Towns, and it has completed its first step in gathering data from every Pueblo Mágico to “improve tourism quality, protect each town’s culture and traditions, and bring economic benefits to residents.”
The plan follows five pillars: sustainability, infrastructure, professionalization, promotion and marketing. Now that Phase I, the data collection portion of the program, is complete, the plan will now launch new infrastructure projects, expand online promotion, provide more training for tourism workers and encourage events during the off-season months.
The Pueblos Mágicos welcomed over 15 million visitors in 2024, generating billions of pesos into local revenues and creating thousands of jobs in places where opportunities are generally limited.
“In this administration, tourism is seen as a generator of shared prosperity," said Secretary of Tourism Josefina Rodríguez Zamora. "Today, more than ever, we are working toward a tourism industry that generates jobs and well-being in resident communities, making them part of the good news sector.”
SECTUR has also partnered with several other organizations to support the Pueblos Mágicos, including an alliance with the BBVA for advertising and financial training, another with VISA to study how tourists spend money in Mexico and another with México Desconocido, a media partnership that promotes over 200 tourism and cultural events across the country.
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