Cancun’s tourism industry faces a significant challenge, and the Association of Vacation and Tourist Resorts (Acotur) has added its voice to the growing call for a change in tourism promotion strategy.
After a summer season marked by a drop in tourist influx, Acotur members, like other actors in the sector in Quintana Roo, are focusing their efforts on promoting the destination in its key source markets, hoping to reverse the trend and prepare for a stronger winter season.
Jesús Calahorra, executive director of Acotur, has highlighted that the US market continues to be crucial for Cancún, along with the Canadian and South American markets. However, external factors, such as the electoral process in the United States and the revision of airplane engines, have generated uncertainty among travelers.
This has led to a decrease in tourist flow which, according to Calahorra, has also been affected by a preference of tourists for Europe this year.
The summer season has been particularly unfavorable for vacation clubs, a sector that, although it is usually less vulnerable than traditional hotels, has not escaped the impact of low occupancy.
The flow of tourists has decreased, affecting the sale and placement of vacation properties, which has led resorts to focus on attracting repetitive tourism, that is, those clients who purchase timeshares and return annually to Cancun. This approach is essential to try to mitigate the impact of the recent slowdown.
Over the last few months, several tourism leaders of the destination, such as Abelardo Vara and José Chapur, have agreed on the need to change Cancun’s tourism promotion strategy. The Ministry of Tourism (Sedetur) has also reflected this concern, especially after the sharp decline in vacation rental occupancy.
At the beginning of the year, vacation property rental platforms reported more than 42,000 units in Quintana Roo, but by August, the number had decreased by 17,000, a drop that forced some owners to temporarily close their units.
Acotur has committed to redoubling promotional efforts to counteract the negative effects of summer and prepare the destination for the winter season. Promotional activities are more crucial than ever, since the objective is to recover the growth rate that Cancún had shown during the first months of the year. However, uncertainty is still present, and the sector is waiting to see how international markets will behave in the face of external factors that have altered traditional travel patterns.
This context poses a complex situation for Cancún, a destination that has historically been resilient, but that now must quickly adapt to new realities.
With its sights set on repetitive tourism and more aggressive promotion, Acotur and the tourism sector in general hope to find solutions that will allow them to recover the lost dynamism and consolidate Cancun as one of Mexico’s strongest destinations on the international scene.
#Acotur #Cancún #asks #review #current #future #tourism #promotion #Mexico