Coparmex Backs Bid to Add Bacalar to Chetumal Airport Name

Chetumal, Quintana Roo — The Chetumal-Mahahual-Bacalar delegation of Coparmex, Mexico’s largest employers’ confederation, has thrown its support behind Gov. Mara Lezama’s effort to add Bacalar to the name of Chetumal International Airport.

Josué Osmany Palomo Hoil, who heads the business group’s local delegation, said the governor has made clear that the goal is not to replace Chetumal’s name but to strengthen it with a designation that leads travelers to identify the airport as the closest and most natural air gateway to Bacalar.

Lezama has framed the proposal as a matter of competitiveness and connectivity aimed at attracting more flights to southern Quintana Roo. She has said that “rather than changing the name of the Chetumal airport, it is about expanding it and adding the word Bacalar.”

Palomo Hoil also praised a branding and tourism positioning project being developed by the state Tourism Department (Sedetur), saying it would turn the Chetumal-Bacalar International Airport name into a genuine promotion strategy with strong digital reach and uptake by airlines, travel agencies and tour operators.

He said the region’s main destinations each bring something distinct to the corridor: Chetumal supplies infrastructure and services, Bacalar contributes an established tourism brand, and Mahahual rounds out the offering with sun, beach and cruise-ship traffic.

The initiative would also help connect and promote Calderitas, Mahahual, Xcalak, Huay-Pix, the Río Hondo riverbank and tourism communities across southern Quintana Roo, according to the delegation.

In its statement, Coparmex said the change would reinforce the state capital’s role as the entry point to the southern Mexican Caribbean. “The incorporation of Bacalar does not take away Chetumal’s identity; on the contrary, it strengthens our capital as the gateway to the southern Mexican Caribbean,” the organization said.

The business group pledged to work alongside Lezama and Sedetur on the federal procedures needed to complete the change, arguing that positioning the airport under the Chetumal-Bacalar name “means opening a wider door to tourism, investment, employment and shared prosperity.”

According to Coparmex, the proposal has drawn support from the municipal governments of Othón P. Blanco and Bacalar, federal lawmakers, local council members, business chambers and hotel associations.