“The percentage of tourists arriving in the Yucatan during the first four months of the year increased by 15.2 percent, well above the national average, which grew only between 4 and 9 percent in the main tourist destinations”, stated the Secretariat of Tourism Development (Sefotur).
The head of Sefotur, Michelle Fridman Hirsch, said that from January to April of this year 674,960 tourists arrived with at least one overnight stay, in comparison with the 585,887 visitors that came to the state during the same period last year, that is a difference of 89,073 tourists.
At a press conference, the state official said that the promotion of the destination has paid off for the tourism sector, “we have not stopped doing an intense promotion work, and today we can see the results, the state government has been doing and extraordinary effort to attract more tourists,” Fridman said.
Michelle Fridman considered that this has been an extraordinary four-month period for the state of Yucatan, she stressed that the figures are encouraging for the second half of the year, especially because the industry suffered a negative impact at national level.
“We are talking about very encouraging figures, especially if we put the result in perspective, because not all tourist destinations in the country are doing so well at this time,” Michelle Fridman declared.
She added that Mérida was placed at the head of the cities with the highest hotel occupancy average nationwide, above destinations such as San Luis Potosí, Puebla, Aguascalientes and Querétaro.
In addition to occupying the second national place in destinations with greater arrival of visitors (not including the border cities), surpassing cities such as Leon, San Luis Potosi, Oaxaca, Culiacan, San Cristóbal and Toluca.
Fridman Hirsch underlined that unlike other destinations in the country, the hotel occupancy in the Yucatecan capital and the rest of the State has not only maintained stable, but is actually on the rise.
Fridman also stated that work has been carried out very closely in the training of personnel in the tourism sector, “in the first nine months of this administration, four thousand travel agents and 500 tourist guides have been trained and certified.
In this period, one thousand new hotel rooms have been opened and it is expected that in 2020 there will be one thousand more, with a growth of 2.4% in hotel accommodations, adding up to 16,000 available hotel rooms in the state.
The head of Sefotur highlighted that Yucatán obtained record figures in number of tourists during the Holy Week holiday season, primarily in beach destinations. The state also increased frequencies of cruise arrivals, and Progreso received 22,000 passengers more than in the same period last year.
The Yucatan Times Newsroom
