Riviera Maya, Cuba Face Record Hotel Vacancies

Cancún — In contrast to Punta Cana, which exceeds 70% occupancy, Riviera Maya and Cuba, two of the three most significant Caribbean tourist destinations alongside Punta Cana, are both experiencing the unprecedented phenomenon of having more than half of their hotel beds vacant in recent days.

The surprise has come from the hotel occupancy rate in the Riviera Maya, which has plummeted to 44% in the first days of September. According to the Consejo de Promoción Turística de Quintana Roo (CPTQ), as of the last count on September 9, the destination reached this level with 58,035 hotel rooms available and only 26,087 rooms occupied.

On the side of Cuba, official data from the first half of 2025 reveals a hotel occupancy rate of just 21.5%, compared to 28.4% last year. This leaves almost four out of every five beds in the country vacant, or 80%, marking a record low for the country and for any major tourist power during a non-extraordinary period such as a pandemic or a natural disaster.

Regarding the Dominican Republic, it registered an occupancy rate that averaged 69%, highlighting Bayahíbe-La Romana (78%), Bávaro-Punta Cana (74%), Samaná-Las Terrenas (63%), and Juan Dolio, Boca Chica (61%). Meanwhile, the emerging destination of Miches already reached 58% that month, higher than other destinations such as Santo Domingo (51%), Barahona (46%), or Sosúa-Cabarete (41%).

Thus, recent weeks have been leaving a slowdown in tourist flows, also in other leading destinations in the region like Cancún or Tulum, though far from the situation in Havana or Varadero. This is due to a decline from markets such as Canada and, to a lesser extent, the United States, attributed to reasons including the weakness of the dollar, despite the boom from source markets like Argentina and Colombia.