Photo courtesy of Thinkstock

With Los Cabos almost fully recovered from Hurricane Odile, tourism officials have turned their attention to the destination’s growth going forward. “We’ve recovered in a short period of time,” said Ruben Reachi Lugo, secretary of tourism for Baja California Sur, the state where Los Cabos is located, during a press conference at Tianguis Turistico in Acapulco. “Hurricane Odile belongs in the past.”

For his part, Luis Palacios, the new commercial director-chief commercial officer for the Los Cabos Tourism Board, has made it clear one of his primary mandates is to increase air connectivity to further boost the destination’s tourism numbers. “From 2011 to 2015, Los Cabos added an unprecedented 800,000 airline seats,” he said. “There’s no growth like this at any other airport in Mexico,” he said. 

In December, Delta launched nonstop service from New York-JFK to Los Cabos, as well as nonstop service from Seattle in February. Earlier in March, United inaugurated nonstop flights from Washington, D.C. Spirit Airlines will begin nonstop service from Houston in May, while Southwest will launch flights from Baltimore in June, and from Houston in October.

Palacios stressed that there is still much more to come in terms of flight expansion both within the U.S. and Canada, including airlift increases from Portland, Ore., Salt Lake City and San Diego. “These flights will increase seat capacity to the destination, supporting the new hotels that will be opening in Los Cabos,” Palacios said.

As reported, Los Cabos will add 2,000 rooms this year and next to its current count of 14,000-plus rooms.

Eighty percent of Los Cabos’ current portfolio of hotels is open post-Odile, tourism officials said. “We have very good news on that front,” said Enrique Turcott, president of the Los Cabos Hotel Association. “We closed December spectacularly, and occupancies for January and February were over 80 percent.”

Esperanza, An Auberge Resort, is scheduled to reopen on April 15 with One&Only Palmilla following on April 20. In June, the Cabo Azul Resort, Hilton Los Cabos and Hyatt Place Los Cabos are slated to reopen. The Hyatt Ziva Los Cabos is scheduled to come back online in July, followed by the Westin Resort & Spa Los Cabos in September and the Melia Cabo Real in November.

In other developments, the officials said the convention center, which played host to the G20 Summit in 2012, remains closed and is expected to open later this year. The airport, which is operating at 90 percent capacity, will be wholly operational by May.

Follow @claudettecovey