COVID REBOUND
Originally Published the Week of Nov. 22, 2022 in Western Outdoor Publications
Mexico tourism, like many places took a big hit in 2020 with the Covid Pandemic. Baja, in particular took it right on the chin with a virtual lockdown that turned many areas like Cabo and other cities into ghostowns.
Some of it was external. I mean, if you have no airline flights there’s not much you can do about it. Likewise, if the U.S. government has closed the passport office, it’s outta your hands.
But, Mexico at ground level was trying to figure out how to handle it. In many respects, they were late-to-the-game in dealing with it.
Mexico is highly dependent on tourism. It needed to keep the general economy moving and people working. Therefore, it sat on it’s hands when the rest of the world was going into lockdown.
It didn’t help matters that Mexico’s own President was still running around visiting restaurants and kissing babies; or telling folks that “Mexico will not be affected by Covid because we have Mayan blood and only rich people are affected by the virus.”
Uh, yea, right.
He also wore a special “amulet” that he claimed would ward off the virus.
It wasn’t too long ago to forget some of the wacky attempts to curb the spread.
That included sanitizing your feet and shoes before you could go into a building or shuttle van. Or who could forget, spraying sanitizer from helicopters?
The stopping of all beer sales was a big winner. So was having to walk through a fumigation tent to go into a market. And only one family member in the store at a time.
At hotels, you could not have two occupied rooms next to each other. One occupied. The next one empty. Then an occupied room. Social distancing to the max!
Since we run a fishing operation, this one was near and dear. At one point, they declared that you could not be on a boat with open-toed footwear. No flip flops. No sandals. To fish “safely” you had to wear closed-toed shoes.
…and the captain could only stay in the center of the boat. And the boat had be regularly fumigated. Even if it was a panga.
Those were just lovely days!
But, the point being, none of this was very conducive to welcoming tourism on any level even after things started to open up.
However, here we are. Almost 3 years post-covid and about a year since masks more-or-less came down.
Tourism is booming.
In fact, tourism in Mexico is breaking records. American tourists are up 35% over last year.
But… not just with Americans. It’s an international vacation destination as well. Mexico is the number one tourism spot in the world right now.
In fact, for the upcoming holiday season, if you’re headed to Cabo, be prepared. It might be hard to find beach space!
We run our own shuttle service for our clients who fish with us in La Paz. The majority fly into Cabo and we transport them north to our city.
I was there in Cabo Airport a week ago and the line of shuttle vans picking up and dropping folks off was incredible. Vans and cars were triple parked with arriving and boarding tourists.
Statistics showed that this year visitors are thronging in greater numbers than ever before.
So much so, that they’re adding another 1500-2000 more hotel room construction in the next year. Airlines have added more flights to the tune of almost 2 million more available plane seats.
By this past spring 2020, almost 3 million visitors had already shown up in Cabo. They expect by the end of the year, Cabo alone will have hosted some 7 million tourists.
During the Thanksgiving holidays, the expectation is for at least 30,000 visitors and more than 80% hotel occupancy.
It’s a phenomenal number. We think of all the big-name hotels brands like Hyatt, St. Regis and Four Seasons to name a few.
However, there are also all the little mom-and-pop operations as well. The big ones have been booked for weeks or months even though statistics show that the average hotel room night is now $400!
Of course there’s plenty of smaller more economic places (like where I stay!). But, the flood of tourists has now slowed down.
Not surprisingly, Cabo has edged Cancun as the #1 Mexican vacation destination.
Just be prepared for crowds if you’re coming down in the next few weeks. Give yourself extra time so you can enjoy your time!
That’s my story!
Jonathan
That's My Story 