The Tourism Business Council of Yucatan requests that it be charged starting in January 2026 to give companies time to make their corresponding adjustments.
Following the Senate’s approval of the $42 tax for foreign tourists arriving in Mexico via cruise ships to the coasts, the president of the Tourism Business Council of Yucatan (Cetur), Jorge Carrillo Sáenz, requested an extension so that this charge can be effective starting in January 2026 and not the following year, which would give companies more time to make their corresponding adjustments.
The business leader recalled that in the face of this and other taxes that have been approved at the federal level “overnight,” the tourism sector has always raised its voice since they is concerned about this custom of adjusting charges from one day to the next, which affects tourists who work a year in advance on their reservations.
“If a tax like this suddenly appears, we practically have to absorb it ourselves, so in the matter of cruise passengers, whoever wants to go to Progreso will have to pay this tax and this will inhibit them from going down and the cruises from stopping coming, which would later translate into a loss of the economic spillover that we have today,” he said.
With the approval of the reform to the Federal Rights Law, recently approved by the Senate, the cruise passenger will have to pay 42 dollars upon arriving on Mexican shores, which at the average exchange rate that is currently maintained (until yesterday), translates into around 848 Mexican pesos.
In this regard, the Cetur leader shared that the idea is to allow companies to collect the tax until 2026 so that in this way the increase in the tax could be promoted or announced because for this year the tourist has already paid for his ticket and if he is surprised to pay more on his arrival, it will affect the industry without chimneys.
“Well, at the beginning, I think we all want that tax not to be collected, but it is already approved and based on that, what we would ask is that it could come into force until 2026, it is supposed to come into force as of January 1, but we will see what happens,” he said.
It must be remembered that before the announcement of the approval of this reform, with the increase in the collection of taxes on cruise passengers, other business sectors such as the hotel sector at a national level, have also expressed their opposition due to the possible effects on tourism that this would imply.
In other aspects, the president of Cetur said that for this December season, they are looking to have an interesting increase in the flow of visitors in Yucatan, because he assured us that we must not lose sight of the fact that in recent months the tourist promotion campaign was stopped due to different aspects of the previous administration.
“Now, with the new administration, we have worked hand in hand to find a way to make many tourist promotions, such as the Valladolid weekend in Mexico, which took place a few days ago, to try to awaken the interest of visitors and get them to come visit one of the seven magical towns that we have in our state,” he concluded.
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