Those who know about the subject foresee that there will soon be a tourist boom after the time of confinement. What will change for this activity?
April 23, 2021, (EL FINANCIERO).- We are in the final stage of the pandemic, before the resurgence of tourism on a global scale. Many tour operators predict, we do not know if with naivety, that during the second half of this year we will have a tourist “boom” derived from a year and a half of confinement.
Let’s say that prognosis is true; that towards the end of 2021 we will have clear indicators of recovery. The question that arises is: Will tourism return as we knew it, or will the pandemic have reconfigured the activity by then?
Based on the large concentrations of tourists that we see in beach destinations such as Acapulco and Cancun, even while the pandemic is not controlled, we predict that mass tourism will continue. Everything seems to indicate that as vaccination covers larger age groups, vacationers will forget the distance restrictions and will travel to destinations that are attractive to them, regardless of the crowds. Still, some behaviors may have changed.
Post pandemic forecasts
1. Travelers will be more aware of sanitary measures and will choose destinations that provide reliability in their service providers. Hotels, carriers, restaurants, and guides that have certifications and comply with health measures will be more successful. Biosanitary security is something that is here to stay.
2. Small-scale tourism will grow significantly. Here we can group private or small group trips, visits to rural communities, adventure tourism, and outdoors.
3. The business travel segment will be reduced. Many individual business travelers will substitute video conferencing for travel. Companies have realized that travel is not always essential to conduct an interview or deliver an executive report.
4. The context of MICE tourism (meetings, incentives, conventions, and exhibitions) will continue to be affected for at least twelve more months. This segment of tourism is scheduled a long time in advance and so far, event organizers have not made a strong decision to organize face-to-face meetings. Only the incentives sub-segment will have a faster recovery.
Opportunity to consolidate the tourist vocation of Yucatan
Yucatán was offered as multiple destinations since before the pandemic. On the one hand, it is positive that a destination has a wide range of activities, restaurants and a wide range of accommodation. On the other hand, it is also important that in the minds of future travelers there is clarity of the three or four types of tourism that define the city they will visit.
Yucatan has infrastructure and attractions to consolidate its tourist vocation in the following niches:
- a) Cultural and gastronomic
- b) Adventure and nature
- c) Destination weddings
- d) Meeting tourism
Siglo XXI Convention Center
Governor Mauricio Vila turned the 21st century into a hospital. It is time for the venue to return to its original objective: the largest exhibition and convention center in the southeast of the country.
I understand the governor’s reasons. You do not want, by removing all the beds from the temporary hospital, to skyrocket the percentage of bed occupancy. But the meeting industry can’t wait any longer. Tourism is an economic activity based on perception management. As long as the XXI century remains closed, the sign is that Yucatán is not ready yet, and event organizers will not schedule anything for the next twelve months.
If we want meeting tourism to be reactivated by the beginning of 2022, the convention center, Yucatán Siglo XXI, must reopen now.
Mérida International Airport
This week the controversy over the construction of a new airport in Mérida was rekindled. The reality is that the current one works perfectly and has just had an extension that will allow it to operate for the next twelve years. Its disadvantage is that it is in the middle of the city and its surface has accentuated the social and economic division of its inhabitants, on either side of the air terminal.
A new airport in the periphery would give the city a large area that could reduce the marked inequalities of the city. But it would be necessary to wonder if an investment of these dimensions is what the city needs to correct this inequality.
Unfortunately, whether the work is justified or not is relatively irrelevant. What drives these decisions are political interests and economic reasons that are not always visible to society. We will soon know where that story is going.
Source: EL FINANCIERO
