In a joint press conference Tuesday April 11, Héctor Navarrete Muñoz, Regional Director of ASUR; Tourism Secretary Saúl Ancona Salazar, and the President of the Mexican Association of Hotels in Yucatán A.C., Héctor Navarrete Medina, presented outstanding results of the tourist activity in the State, showing historical advances.
Passenger Movement
The movement of arrivals and departures at the International Airport of the City of Merida increased by 89% between 2006 and 2016, which means an increase of 913,771 passengers in the last 10 years.
The regional director of airport operator ASUR, Hector Navarrete Muñoz, reported that for this first quarter of 2017 the trend continues positively to increase from the 444,392 passengers mobilized from January to March 2016, to reach 512,603 passengers for the period from January to March 2017, which represents an increase of 15.3%.
Hotel Occupancy
Héctor Navarrete Medina, President of the Mexican Association of Hotels in Yucatan AC, reported that hotel occupancy in the state, in a weighted global of the first quarter, went from a 41.76% recorded in 2013 against 61.69% in the first quarter 2017, which shows a difference of 19.93 percentage points.
Navarrete Medina indicated that the months of January and February that had been characterized as a season generally difficult for hoteliers, now can be considered an important period of high occupancy, and March of this year presents a growing trend.
As for the current holiday season of Easter, he said that there are very promising forecasts for air travel and regional tourism that is also transferred by land. “In a timely manner we will release the definitive figures – but We expect that in these days the hotel occupancy in Merida and the State in general will maintain a considerable increase,” he said.
Joint Work Results
Yucatan and its capital Mérida have been consolidated thanks to the public policies and cross-cutting actions that the State Government, through the Ministry of Tourism Promotion, has done in the last 4 and a half years with the business sector, said Secretary Saúl Ancona Salazar.
In the most recent publication of the Hotel Monitoring Program Datatur, operated by the Secretary of Tourism of the Federal Government, Mérida stands out in the fourth place in the cities of the interior of the Republic of a total of 42 cities in that category; (beach centers and large cities are other categories) with a 62.07% occupancy, just below San Luis Potosí, Puebla and Mexicali, and far above Ciudad Juarez, Tijuana and Querétaro, among other cities, said the official .
Meridal International Airport has achieved the Certification of the System of Environmental Management ISO.
The environmental certification of the Merida Airport is a further step towards excellence and international quality, as a result of teamwork and a commitment to constant service with the more than 1.7 million passengers received each year.
Likewise, as a result of the influx of visitors and overnight stays, it ranked fourth with 1,262,775 visitors, just below Puebla, León and Querétaro (cities with a strong industrial and commercial base and close to Mexico City). Below Merida are located Tijuana, Oaxaca, Ciudad Juarez, San Luis Potosí, Guanajuato and San Cristobal de las Casas, among other cities.
The hotel occupancy in both Merida and Yucatán from 2006 to 2008 maintained a constant rhythm of growth, reaching 63.5% in Mérida and 57.6% in the whole State; However, since 2009 there was a drop of almost 10 percentage points, but from 2014 until the end of 2016, hotel occupancy indicators show a recovery similar to that of 2008: in the city of Mérida with 62.1% of occupancy and the State with 56.9%.
Another historical advance is the arrival of overnight visitors in Yucatan, through the Data Tur, it is contemplated that 10 years ago, in 2006, there was an influx of 981,700 national and international tourists. In 2008, which has been considered a “good year for tourism in Mexico”, Yucatan registered the arrival of 1,000,325 tourists with overnight stay.
However, as of 2013, the records of 2008 were exceeded and by the end of 2016 Yucatan reported the arrival of 1,456,000 overnight visitors, that is, 131,000 visitors more than the 2008 record, 76% of which being domestic and 24% international travelers.
As for the first two months of 2017, officials recorded the arrival of 267,459 tourists with overnight stays, which means an increase of 18% compared to 2016, when 226,000 tourists arrived in the state. “At the end of April we will have the figure of the first quarter according to the Datatur system,” Saúl Ancona added.
“The joint strategies have allowed us to achieve favorable figures in the tourism sector, which encourages new investments in Merida and Yucatan. We have made Merida and Yucatan fasionable, as expressed by national and international media and experts in the tourism industry,” stressed the head of the Sefotur.
The national and international recognition that has received the destination with diverse prizes, as well as its leadership in the development of the regional tourism of the Mayan World, allow us to be optimistic to continue with a constant growth in tourism, the official said.
Finally, Saul Ancona recalled that the economic outlay for tourism in Yucatan in 2016 was 8.5 billion pesos, which meant an increase of 15.4% over 2015, which was 7.4 billion pesos.
The average daily expenses for tourism in Yucatan (not including transportation from their places of origin) amounts to 3,316 pesos; Which has made tourism consolidate in Yucatan as in Mexico as a preponderant activity for economic and social development, he said.
Source: SEFOTUR Yucatán.
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