For the past three years, tourism in Los Cabos has been like an arrow shooting straight up. That trend has applied to costs, with the asking prices for everything from hotel rooms to restaurant entrées rising inexorably. It has also applied to the number of vacationers visiting Baja California Sur’s southernmost municipality.
Thus, the big question has been: how long can this continue? Eventually, one presumes, some tourists will balk at the higher prices, preventing record-setting visitation numbers at the end of each calendar year.
With the release of data for the first six months of 2024 by the Los Cabos Tourism Board (Fiturca), it’s possible to take a more nuanced look at the tourism statistics. Yes, hotel rates are higher than a year ago, and people are still visiting in droves, but not everything is at an all-time high. Decreases can be seen in some areas for the first time since the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021.
Higher room rates haven’t deterred tourists from Los Cabos
The number of visitors flying into Los Cabos has risen each year, from 2.8 million in 2021 to 3.3 million in 2022 and a record 3.86 million in 2023. Simultaneously, the average daily rate of the region’s hotel rooms has climbed as well, reaching US $417 in 2022, $452 by 2023 and climbing even higher to $517 in 2024.
The correlation between these two statistics suggests visitors are unfazed by room rate price hikes. The numbers in 2024 confirm it. Occupancy percentages for Los Cabos hotels are at 76% this year, slightly better than the 70% achieved in 2022 and 2023.
Looking for budget-friendly travel? Choose your Los Cabos resort location carefully
Interestingly, average daily room rates fluctuate significantly depending on where the accommodations are located – at least based on Firtuca’s latest figures for that statistic . Resorts in the Tourist Corridor connecting cape cities Cabo San Lucas and San José del Cabo commanded an average room rate of US $626 in 2023, while rooms in San José del Cabo proper averaged $383, and those in Cabo San Lucas “only” $316.
Why are Tourist Corridor-based hotel rooms so much more expensive on average? This 20-mile coastal corridor is home to many of the most luxurious properties in the Los Cabos municipality, including exclusive properties like One&Only Palmilla, Las Ventanas al Paraíso, Montage Los Cabos, Esperanza, and Chileno Bay Resort & Residences. Cabo San Lucas, meanwhile, is the site of many of the region’s best budget-friendly hotels.
Fewer domestic travelers are visiting Los Cabos
The total number of passengers who flew into the area through May this year was 1.64 million, a figure down slightly from a year ago. But the reason wasn’t a drop in international visitors. Their numbers have been up, albeit by a fraction of a percent. Rather, domestic travelers accounted for the slight decrease in arrivals.
A little over 544,000 people visited Los Cabos from within Mexico through May, 7.1% less than did so during the same time frame last year. This could suggest a distaste by some Mexicans for the higher hotel rates – Los Cabos, famously, is the most expensive destination in the country. On the other hand, this could be an entirely predictable slide after massive visitation numbers by domestic travelers in 2023. Last year, for example, domestic passenger numbers were up 34.8% in January, 30.1% in February, 27.6% in March, 21.4% in April and 14% in May. Those incredible numbers simply weren’t sustainable.
Despite more international flights, most tourists hail from U.S. or Mexico
Los Cabos is easier to reach than ever, with flights now available from 30 cities in the U.S., 16 in Mexico, 11 in Canada and two in Europe. The European markets — Frankfurt and Madrid — are an important addition in terms of connectivity but don’t be deceived: the overwhelming majority of tourists coming to Los Cabos in 2024 fly from North American destinations, with nearly 56% of flights originating in the U.S. and 38% from Mexico.
These numbers are even more remarkable given that a few select destinations provide most of the traffic. Nearly half of all U.S. visitors fly from airports in California or Texas, with Mexico City the most common debarkation point for domestic travelers.
Cruise ship visits and passenger numbers are down this year
The last two years have been banner ones for the Cabo San Lucas cruise ship economy, as the Land’s End city welcomed 226 ships bringing 540,773 visitors in 2022 and 236 ships carrying a staggering 735,686 passengers in 2023. This year to date has not been nearly as good, with 50 fewer ships visiting through the first four months relative to the same period in 2023.
However, these numbers are not indicative of a long-term trend, at least according to a well-placed source, who credited last year’s robust numbers in part to the slow recovery of other cruise destinations from the COVID-19 pandemic earlier in the decade. Thus, ships not normally dedicated to Mexican Riviera or Cabo San Lucas cruises were rerouted in 2023, benefitting the local market. The good news for Cabo San Lucas is that despite the decline so far in 2024, over 257,000 cruise ship passengers have already visited, and 2025 is expected to be even better.
Visitor projections for the remainder of 2024 and what they mean
Projecting forward, visitor numbers should be close to, if not slightly better than in 2023. Fiturca expects more than a million more visitors from the U.S. to arrive by air before the end of 2024, with nearly 900,000 scheduled from within Mexico. Add that 1.98 million expected airline passengers to the 1.64 that arrived through April and the 302,000 in May and you get 3.93 million total, a number slightly above the 3.86 million who flew in last year.
There’s still plenty of time to buy tickets, too, so the recent streak of record-setting annual totals in Los Cabos looks poised to continue.
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.
