The spread of the coronavirus is finally catching up to Mexico.
According to a report in the Riviera Maya News, the Asociación de Hoteles de Cancún, Puerto Morelos and Isla Mujeres say a total of 51 hotels have temporarily closed in the region as a consequence of the spread of COVID-19.
In a statement, the Hotel Association clarified the hotels that are in operation are carrying out all prevention and hygiene measures in a systematic way, applying the corresponding protocols for the protection of visitors and are also attentive to the official information of the respective dependencies.
Despite global travel restrictions, there are still 6,025 tourists in the area.
Mexico had 475 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and six deaths as of March 26. To put that in perspective and to show how fast the virus is spreading, the entire country had eight cases total just three weeks ago.
Tourists are neither flying into the resort area nor getting off of cruise ships unlike last year during this time. According to the Los Angeles Times, more than 1,300 cruise ships carrying 4.5 million passengers docked in Cozumel last year - a record for the area. Two months into this year, the region was already on pace to surpass that.
"It has been a brutal economic downfall," Cozumel Mayor Pedro Joaquín Delbouis said.
Reuters reported earlier this week that hotel occupancy in the state of Quintana Roo, home to Cancun and Playa del Carmen, is now below 60 percent when just the week before it was 85 percent, state Tourism Minister Marisol Venegas told the news service in a phone interview.
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