Quintana Roo Governor Carlos Joaquín González has spoken out against the bid made by the National Tourism Promotion Fund (Fonatur) to relocate two developments planned for the Cancún hotel zone.

Fonatur chief Rogelio Jiménez Pons said Monday that the tourism fund has offered land in alternative locations to the developers of the 3,000-room Grand Island mega-hotel and the 500-room Riu Riviera Cancún in an attempt to persuade them to move their projects.

Cancún doesn’t have the capacity to provide the services they would require, such as water and drainage, Jiménez said.

For his part, Joaquín said that asking the developers of the two hotels not to go ahead with their projects in Cancún represented a threat to legal certainty, which he asserted is essential to attracting new investment.

Both the Grand Island and Riviera Cancún projects have been authorized by departments of the current federal government, he said. Therefore, Fonatur has no legal basis on which to ask them to relocate, the governor charged.

“They comply with what the law asks for today. . . They’re not going against the law, quite the opposite. . .” Joaquín said. “We’ll have to speak with Fonatur about the situation. . .”

The governor stressed that the Riu project went through a long legal process to gain approval after a judge halted the project in 2016 due to environmental concerns.

“Respect for the law and respect of legal certainty must be put first in Quintana Roo,” Joaquín said.

Quintana Roo Tourism Secretary Marisol Vanegas also stressed that “there is no [legal] impediment” to the completion of the Grand Island and Riviera Cancún projects although she acknowledged that Fonatur’s concern about overdevelopment is “legitimate.”

Authorities will be forced to think about how growth in the tourism sector can be maintained while ensuring that the infrastructure required by visitors keeps up, she said.

Source: El Economista (sp)