Baja California continues to draw massive amounts of visitors. Over 12 million visited the state during the first three months of 2025, an 8% increase across the same period the year prior. If that pace holds, it should easily exceed the 28 million visitors it saw in 2024 and the 30 million it received in 2023.
These aren’t all traditional tourism visits, or the state would have handily surpassed Quintana Roo (21 million tourists) as the country’s top tourism destination in 2024. Instead, many were what is known as “border tourists,” meaning those who don’t stay overnight. But any way these visitors are categorized, or the million people who arrived via cruise ships last year, tourism contributed about one billion dollars (19.8 billion pesos) to Baja California’s coffers in 2024, an impressive number.
But perhaps the best recent example of the state’s tourism prowess was the overwhelming success of Tianguis Turístico Mexico (TTM), the 49th edition of which was held in Baja California and San Diego, California, from April 28 to May 1, 2025.
Tianguis Turistico Mexico in Baja California set records
“What better place than Baja California, the state where the nation begins, to send this message to the world: Mexico is in fashion,” said Josefina Rodríguez Zamora, head of Mexico’s Secretaría de Turismo (Sectur), on the occasion of this year’s TTM, the first-ever binational edition.
That was evident, not only by the fact that the event drew 8,781 participants from 46 nations, or that innumerable deals were done—including the establishment of 35 new flights (28 of them international) to Mexico—but that the TTM set a Guinness World Record for the most people ever to attend a tourism fair in Mexico on a single day (over 7,000). That the event was a rousing success was also seen from the hotel occupancy rates, which hit 98% in Tijuana and 95% in Rosarito.
However, perhaps the biggest long-term announcement locally was that of a new hotel, the Westin Hotel by Marriott, that will open in Tijuana as part of an ambitious 150-million-dollar T10 urban tourism development. The news was announced by the state’s governor, Marina del Pilar Ávila, less than two weeks before the U.S. tourist visas for her and her husband, Carlos Torres Torres, were controversially revoked, the first time that has ever happened to a sitting governor from Mexico.
Opera in the streets of Tijuana
Opera de Tijuana, which was founded in 2000 by María Teresa Riqué and José Medina, is celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2025. Considering its goal is not just to promote opera and classical music in the city, but to make it more accessible to the public, it’s hard to think of a better way to commemorate the organization’s ongoing relevance than the return of Opera en la Calle, which has brought the musical artform to close to a quarter of a million people since it premiered in 2004 in Colonia Libertad. The event eventually moved to Calle 11, between Avenida Revolución and Avenida Madero, in 2024, where it will once again be held on Saturday, July 12, 2025, from 3 to 11 p.m.
The origins of this now highly anticipated annual festival (12,000 people attended last year) date to 1994, when one of the festival’s founders, Enrique Fuentes, saw the Daniel Catán and Juan Tovar opera Rappaccini’s Daughter performed in San Diego. By 2001, there was no longer enough room for his friends to watch opera videos or listen to recordings in his house in Tijuana’s Colonia Libertad, so he founded Café de la Opera. By 2004, that was no longer big enough, so he, along with his sister Susy, Maria Teresa Riqué, and a few others, founded the first Opera en la Calle on July 10 of that year at Cine Libertad.
They weren’t expecting much of a turnout, so they only put out 320 chairs. By 5 p.m., so many people had shown up (about 3,000) that Fuentes began to get scared (per BC Reporteros). “Please don’t let them come anymore! What are we going to do?” In the years since, the Opera en la Calle has seen everything from traditional operas like Carmen, Pagliacci, La Traviata, and La Bohème performed to more contemporary and cross-cultural productions. This year, an estimated 300 artists, along with 50 vendors and an equivalent number of volunteers and staff, will be on hand to continue the long-running and ever-popular event.
The 2025 wine vintage is shaping up to be another good one in BC
Oenophiles can recall from memory legendary Bordeaux vintages like 1945, 1961, and 1982. Baja California wine-growing areas like Valle de Guadalupe don’t yet inspire that kind of reverence, but the state does produce upwards of 70% of all Mexico’s wines, and as Wine Enthusiast notes, it is the country’s “premier wine region.”
Thus, some do track its vintages, with the hopes of a particularly exceptional quality. If you’re one of them, there’s good news: 2025 is shaping up to be another good year for the region’s 80-plus wineries. BC’s wine valleys enjoy a Mediterranean-style climate, with hot days and cool nights providing the consistently large diurnal temperature range (57 to 96 Fahrenheit this June) so important to producing quality grapes.
Warmer temperatures, it should be noted, concentrate flavors, while cooler ones help retain the acidity necessary for balanced wines and are essential for the development of delicate aromas. Most regional wineries are found within 15 miles of the ocean, which helps, since ocean breezes offer a natural cooling effect.
Cabernet sauvignon and chenin blanc are the most popular among the 40 or so wine grape varieties planted in Baja California vineyards, with the wines they produce notable for their minerality due to terroir and the salinity levels of water in underground wells. Enough rain is expected this year for a lush growing season before the annual harvest in August. Yes, August is early by wine harvesting standards, but the hot regional temperatures accelerate ripening.
So the outlook for quality is good, even though regarding quantity, nothing will likely ever again approach the 13.5 tons per hectare yield recorded in 1982. Yes, 1982 was a legendary vintage in Baja California, too.
Chris Sands is the Cabo San Lucas local expert for the USA Today travel website 10 Best, writer of Fodor’s Los Cabos travel guidebook and a contributor to numerous websites and publications, including Tasting Table, Marriott Bonvoy Traveler, Forbes Travel Guide, Porthole Cruise, Cabo Living and Mexico News Daily. His specialty is travel-related content and lifestyle features focused on food, wine and golf.
