Mexico's Chichen Itza Breaks Single-Day Visitor Record

Image: Chichen Itzá, a Mayan pyramid of Kukulcan El Castillo. (photo via iStock / Getty Images Plus / IR_Stone)
Image: Chichen Itzá, a Mayan pyramid of Kukulcan El Castillo. (photo via iStock / Getty Images Plus / IR_Stone)
Rich Thomaselli
by Rich Thomaselli
Last updated: 1:35 PM ET, Sun January 28, 2024

It might be early, but it’s playing out exactly how Mexican government officials had hoped.

The historic ruins of Chichen Itza recently broke a single-day attendance record. The site had more than 7,500 visitors.

The massive figure is largely attributed to the new Mayan train, which takes visitors on a sightseeing tour through Mexican ruins and archeological sites in the Yucatan.

Diego Prieto Hernández, the General Director of the National Institute of Anthropology and History, said the record occurred on January 23.

“We have had a notable increase in the influx of visitors to the archaeological zones throughout the country, but particularly from the Mayan area and very particularly from the areas near the Maya Train route,” he said.

The 300-mile roundtrip sightseeing tour takes visitors even closer than before to the ruins. Although there are still portions that have yet to be completed, the bulk of the train route was finished in late December. There are 29 total archeological sites to see.

The route from Cancun through Tulum is considered to be the most historical.

Visitors to Chichen Itza have been up 23 percent so far compared to the same time frame last year. In fact, tourism has increased 17 percent in Uxmal and more than 20 percent in Tulum. 


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Rich Thomaselli

Rich Thomaselli

Associate Writer

Editor Associate Writer true 9281 14744 Rich Thomaselli has written for TravelPulse since 2014 and has been a professional journalist for nearly 40 years. His work has appeared in USA Today, the New York Times and New York Yankees publications. He is an 11-time writ

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