Tourism company Grupo Xcaret plans to invest US $400 million over the next eight years to build five hotels and a new theme park.

CEO and company founder Miguel Quintana told the newspaper El Financiero that two hotels are currently being built on land adjacent to the Xcaret theme park south of Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo.

“We have two hotels under construction: a small boutique hotel with 73 rooms and another 900-room hotel, the Hotel Xcaret Arte,” he said, explaining that every room at the latter hotel will be named after a Mexican artist.

“There will be three other hotels; within eight years we’ll have 5,400 rooms,” Quintana said.

One of the new hotels will be a US $85-million all-inclusive resort in Cancún called La Casa de la Playa (The Beach House), for which orchestra conductor Alondra de la Parra will be an official ambassador. It is expected to open in 2020.

“As for parks, we’re preparing for the opening of one in Yucatán . . .” Quintana said.

The Yucatán theme park will be Xcaret’s eighth. Most recently, the company opened Xavage, a park where visitors can enjoy a range of adventure experiences on water, land and in the air. It is located just off the highway between Cancún and Playa del Carmen.

Francisco Gutiérrez, director of Xcaret’s hotel division, said earlier this year that the company was looking at the area around Valladolid to build a theme park and boutique hotels. However, it is unclear when the projects might start.

Quintana told El Financiero that Xcaret is also one of the largest providers of guided tours to Yucatán peninsula archaeological sites such as Chichén Itzá, Tulum and Cobá.

The Hotel Xcaret Arte, which is expected to open in 2021, will be an “all fun inclusive” property, Quintana added, meaning that guests will be able to join all of Xcaret’s tours and visit all of its parks at no additional cost.

“All the parks and tours . . . will be an extension of the hotel . . . Everything is included, it’s a complete vacation,” he said, adding that he believed that the plan is a “winning concept.”

Source: El Financiero (sp)