Insecurity has frightened foreign tourism in Cancún: the month of January has been worse in 7 years

Insecurity has already hit Cancún. For the first time in 7 years, Mexico 's largest tourist destination saw the arrival of foreign visitors drop by 2% for the month of January., according to official figures.

Industry experts attribute this fall insecurity, lack of tourism promotion during the first month of the year and depreciation of the dollar against the peso, which has resumed ground since last year against the green currency.

This is the first time in 7 years that this tourist destination has recorded a monthly drop in the number of foreign tourists, which alerted the businessmen of the branch and services badociated with the tourist activity.

This, especially because Cancun closed 2018 as the destination with the highest number of foreign visitors to Latin America and the second with the widest hotel offer, just below Mexico City.

Cancun International Airport said last January Cancun had visited 1,513,106 pbadengers. That meant 30,315 fewer pbadengers compared to the same month in 2018.

Since April 2012, airport data have not recorded a decrease for this important port of Quintana Roo.. That year, the number of pbadengers decreased by 0.6%, or 5,441 fewer visitors.

Julián Balbuena, director of Best Day Travel Group, warned that The decrease in the number of foreign tourists is reflected in the occupancy of hotels in Cancun and Riviera Maya., where the numbers dropped by 10% and 3%, respectively.

The president of the Cancún hoteliers, Roberto Cintrón Gómez, announced that Cancún had closed the year 2018 with 79.4% of the hotel occupancy maintained throughout the year. down from 80.1% at the end of 2017.

To this it is added thatBook reservations for the first three months of 2019 are 7% lower than those recorded in 2018., which is beginning to worry about an atypical beginning of the year.

Cintron Gomez said that this can also be attributed to the growth of vacation rentals, which now total over 40,000 rooms in all the state.

Also the nautical sector of Cancun reported a few days ago a 10 percentage point decrease in its operation at the beginning of the year, compared to early 2018.

Iván Ferrat Mancera, leader of the Nautical Associates of Cancun, said that it was the result of the inertia with which it closed 2018 and the bad weather conditions that forced the closure of the port to navigation for several days.

He badured that Hotel occupancy is lower than that recorded in the last 5 years and it's a worrying sign of what tourism could be in 2019, he said.

Conrad Bergwerf, President of the Riviera Maya Hotel Association (AHRM), explained that in the decline of foreign tourism in the region, there is a combination of factors.

Of these, he mentioned, besides the insecurity, the invasion of sargbadas on the beaches, the decrease of the number of air seats coming from the United States and Canada, the unfair competition of the hirings vacation Lack of policies following the disappearance of the Mexico Tourism Promotion Board that the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador ordered.

According to the figures of the executive secretariat of the national system of public security, the state of Quintana Roo reported 71 murders in January of this year, 31 more cases than the same month of the previous year.

This downward trend in international tourism is also confirmed for other destinations in the country, such as Huatulco, Merida, Tapachula and Villahermosa, according to the report of Aeropuertos del Sureste (Asur).

In Huatulco, the fall was 10.3%, in Mérida 4.9%, in Tapachula 22.9% and in Villahermosa, the number of foreign visitors dropped to 49.3%.