A new US $130-million hotel with more than 1,000 rooms is being planned for Tulum, Quintana Roo.
The resort-style 1,089-room Hotel Internacional will be built on land on the western side of federal Highway 307 in an area of Tulum known as Ganadera Tankah III.
Once all the permits for its construction have been granted, the hotel will be built in a period of five years, according to the tourism news website Reportur.
An application for environmental approval was presented to federal authorities on May 3.
Swimming pools, a solarium, large garden areas and a water desalination plant are among the features planned.
Thick jungle around the proposed development will be maintained while a cenote, or natural sinkhole, and five caves on the site will reportedly be protected.
The ambitious hotel plan will increase the number of hotel rooms on offer in the Riviera Maya, where the market is already considered to be oversupplied.
Nevertheless, the state of Quintana Roo is expected to have an additional 16,000 hotel rooms by 2020. One of the most anticipated projects is a 150-room Waldorf Astoria hotel to be built by Hilton in the north of the state.
Apple Leisure Group had planned to invest an estimated US $1 billion to open six new hotels but CEO Alejandro Zozaya said that some of the projects have been “put on pause” because “the situation is a little bit uncertain.”
He described violence in Mexico, the disbandment of the Tourism Promotion Council (CPTM), a decline in high-end tourism and the arrival of sargassum on Caribbean coast beaches, among other factors, as “a perfect storm” for the travel industry.
