by Donald Wood
Last updated: 4:20 PM ET, Tue April 30, 2019
The hotel industry is vital to the Mexican economy, but recently released data shows performance metrics for lodging have dropped in the first quarter of 2019.
According to Reportur.com, lodging-data provider STR found that the drop in numbers can be attributed in part to the lack of funding and support following the government's shutdown of the Mexico Tourism Board.
Other factors contributing to the decline in hotel industry numbers are security concerns and the lack of an organized approach to tourism. Occupancy dropped 4.9 percent year-over-year for the first quarter to 61.9 percent, with some of the decline caused by supply growth of 2.7 percent exceeding soft demand by 2.3 percent.
In total, occupancy reached the lowest percentages for any first quarter since 2013.
The average daily rates for hotels in Mexico also dropped by 2.4 percent year-over-year to around $119, while revenue per available room plummeted by 7.2 percent to $83.65.
Overall, the poor performance from hotels in Mexico was caused by drops in key markets, including the Yucatan Peninsula (Cancun and the Riviera Maya saw a decrease of 4.8 percent in the average daily rate) and Northwest Mexico (Los Cabos dropped by 1.1 percent).
Mexico's central-south region was the nation's only market to experience a rise in occupancy, where it experienced growth of 1.3 percent to 51 percent overall.
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