Mexico’s tourism industry enjoyed a successful first quarter as hotel occupancy across the nation exceeded 60% in Q1 of 2024, according to data reported by the Tourism Ministry (Sectur).

The 60.9% first-quarter occupancy rate was a 0.4% increase over the same period a year ago and slightly better than the 60.2% rate reported for the January-July 2023 period.

Hotels benefited from the rising influx of tourists during the first three months of 2024. The national statistics agency INEGI reported a nearly 11% rise in international visitors in March as compared to the same month a year ago.

The quarterly Sectur report included data from 70 tourist destinations across Mexico with hotels in beach resorts enjoying an occupancy rate of 71.1% in Q1, the January-March period. Hotels located in cities in the interior of Mexico saw 51.7% of their rooms filled.

Tourism Secretary Miguel Torruco broke down the numbers further: The tourist destinations with the highest occupancy rate were Playacar (an exclusive tourism complex in Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo) at 92.9%; Nuevo Nayarit (formerly Nuevo Vallarta, Nayarit) at 86.7%; Akumal, Quintana Roo at 84.4%; Cabo San Lucas, Baja California Sur at 83%; Cancún at 81.8%; and Puerto Vallarta at 81.5%.

How many tourists have visited Mexican destinations in 2024?

Sectur calculated that 20.3 million tourists visited Mexican destinations during the first quarter of the year, with international tourists comprising 6.1 million — or 30% — of that total. Hotels in the interior of the country received 11.5 million tourists while beach resorts accounted for the remaining 8.8 million visitors.

Torruco revealed that the development of new tourism projects is also proceeding apace. From 2019 through 2023, the tourism sector added 87,000 new rooms, increasing Mexico’s total offering to 890,000 rooms in 25,900 establishments. As a result, the average number of rooms available during the first three months of this year exceeded 435,000, an increase of 0.8% over Q1 2023.

The ongoing construction and slowly increasing hotel occupancy is a positive sign that Mexico’s tourism sector has come back strong from the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Sectur report noted that beach resorts had 206,593 rooms available during Q1 this year, a 0.5% increase over the same period a year ago. In interior cities, there were 229,182 rooms available, a 1% increase over January through March 2023.

With reports from Milenio