by Donald Wood
Last updated: 12:20 AM ET, Fri January 6, 2023
New hotel occupancy data from the Mexican Caribbean shows that key destinations thrived during the winter holiday travel period.
According to the Riviera Maya News, officials from the Cancun, Puerto Morelos & Isla Mujeres Hotel Association said hotel occupancy rates averaged 85 percent through December 29.
In Cancun, the city averaged hotel occupancy rates of around 84.7 percent and Puerto Morelos averaged an estimated 77.2 percent. As for the Continental Zone of Isla Mujeres (Costa Mujeres), properties averaged an 81.2 percent occupancy rate during the holidays.
Downtown Hotel Committee president Rebeca Bravo said properties in the downtown Cancun region averaged a 70 percent occupancy rate, which jumped to 75 percent during the New Year's Eve holiday weekend.
"We are receiving quite mixed tourism," Bravo said. "The occupancy rates that they currently have in some cases are already higher than those in 2019 before the pandemic."
Bravo also told the Riviera Maya News the committee anticipates an occupancy of up to 90 percent for the first week of 2023, but that number is expected to drop 65 percent for the second week of January.
In December, Mexico's Minister of Tourism, Miguel Torruco Marques, said the country hosted 18.4 million international tourists by air between January and November 2022, representing an increase of 51.7 percent compared to the same period in 2021. Marques said the United States, Canada and Colombia are the leading markets for air travel.
The Ministry of Tourism also revealed last month that more than $22 billion entered Mexico from international visitors from January to October 2022, 49.2 percent more than during the same period in 2021.
Foreign exchange income from international visitors over the first three-quarters of the year was $22.5 billion. The figure exceeded the foreign exchange captured in the same period of 2019 by 11.6 percent.
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