3,000+ Hotel Rooms Closed in Quintana Roo Low Season

Cancún, Mexico — A total of 3,972 hotel rooms have been temporarily closed for remodeling during the lowest season of the year. Of these, 3,109 are hotel rooms closed during the current low season in Cancún's hotel zone, according to a report released by the Cancún, Puerto Morelos, and Isla Mujeres Hotel Association (AHCPMIM).

This figure is supplemented by another 296 rooms in Cancún's city center, 143 in Puerto Morelos, and an additional 424 on the mainland of Isla Mujeres. This brings the total number of rooms temporarily closed for remodeling during the year's lowest season to 3,972.

In a prior interview, the Secretary of Tourism for Quintana Roo, Bernardo Cueto Riestra, had anticipated that during the current season, many hotels would take the opportunity to remodel their facilities ahead of the high winter season. He stated that low occupancy rates allow hotels to take certain areas of their accommodations out of service for refurbishment work.

What remains unknown at this time is how many workers are being affected by this temporary closure of rooms. In his most recent statement on the matter, the head of the AHCPMIM, Rodrigo de la Peña, denied that the association he leads promotes labor policies such as "solidarity" rest days or forced unpaid leave. However, he acknowledged that it is now up to each individual hotel to decide how to manage its workforce during the more than two months that the year's lowest season lasts.

At the very least, the statistical report does account for a low season that is much more complicated than the previous year. During the peak of the Independence Day holiday period, Cancún's hotel zone reported 59.4% occupancy; the city center was at 39.5%; Puerto Morelos at 44.6%; and the mainland of Isla Mujeres at 60.1%.

The average occupancy between September 1 and 16 shows that Cancún's hotel zone is at least two percentage points below what was recorded in the same period last year. Meanwhile, hotels in the city center are 10 points below their 2024 levels; Puerto Morelos is also down by 4 points, and the mainland of Isla Mujeres is down by nearly 3 percentage points.

This coincides with the Cancún International Airport recording its two worst days during the Independence Day holiday period; the first was on September 16 with 347 operations, and the following day it fell even further to 341.