Quintana Roo Rethinks Tourism Model as Visitor Spending Falls

Cancún, Quintana Roo — Tourism generates roughly 45 percent of Quintana Roo’s gross domestic product, but three years of declining visitor spending and shifting traveler habits are forcing hotels, business groups and state officials to rethink how the Mexican Caribbean sells itself.

The industry’s annual economic impact exceeds $19 billion, yet spending has contracted by about 3 percent over the past three years, according to figures cited in a sector review released around World Tourism Day. The state remains one of Mexico’s leading destinations, but internal and external pressures have cut into both arrivals and revenue.

About six of every 10 jobs in Quintana Roo are tied to tourism. Annual overnight visits had approached 20 million in recent years, but the latest summer season was difficult, with occupancy rates of 20 to 40 percent in some destinations. Tulum even reported hotel closures, while lower activity is weighing on employment, wages and consumer spending. Several real estate, tourism and commercial projects have been paused.

Business Leaders Warn of Mounting Pressure

Alejandro Arvizu Contreras, president of the state’s Business Coordinating Council (CCE), acknowledged the difficult outlook for the productive sector. He said the drop in visitors is not unique to Quintana Roo but that domestic factors are also at play, pointing to sargassum seaweed that federal, state and municipal authorities are working to address.

Jovita Portillo Navarro, president of the employers’ group Coparmex, highlighted the tax burden as an added strain. She argued that traveling to Mexico is becoming more expensive than competing destinations and questioned a proposal to raise the Non-Resident Fee (DNR) again, calling it a contradiction to treat tourism as a priority industry while pushing measures that increase costs for visitors.

A Domino Effect Across the Economy

Sociologist Miguel Martínez Hernández said the fallout extends beyond hotel payrolls. “Low hotel occupancy permeates every sector and can even affect social behavior — with less income, illicit activities such as robberies can spike. It’s a chain driven by the state’s dependence,” he said.

He stressed the need to advance economic diversification, a goal successive administrations have set but never fully achieved.

Foreign trade specialist Sergio León Cervantes estimated that about $12 billion a year in goods movement is linked to tourism consumption. He noted that Quintana Roo contributes heavily to national GDP while coping with population growth above the national average and lagging urban and social infrastructure.

Security, Sargassum and Air Connectivity Top the List of Challenges

State Tourism Secretary Bernardo Cueto Riestra said global economic conditions have prevented stronger results and remain one of the sector’s biggest challenges, alongside environmental pressures — particularly the massive influx of sargassum.

“Many factors have affected the industry, but we know we have a resilient destination, growing stronger, with great competitiveness and infrastructure, and we will carry all of that into the coming years so that tourism keeps growing in Quintana Roo,” he said.

Toni Chaves Palomo, president of the Riviera Maya Hotel Association, listed security, tourism promotion, sargassum, a shortage of airline seats and armed conflicts abroad among the pressures. He urged authorities to prioritize tourism in practice, not just in speeches, and again criticized the proposed DNR increase.

By his comparison, destinations such as Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic levy a tourism tax of no more than $10, while the Mexican Caribbean charges around $70.

“Everything contributed to this decline, but here it is important to call on the authorities to prioritize tourism beyond the narrative, not just in speeches,” Chaves Palomo said. “Proof of that is the proposal to raise the DNR in the next fiscal package, when conditions don’t allow for it. It would be a brutal blow, because it would make the destination more expensive and take away our competitiveness.”

Rethinking the Model for 2050

Changing traveler preferences are adding to the pressure. Tourists are seeking new experiences and showing more interest in local communities and sustainability, forcing the state to revamp how it promotes and segments its offerings.

Deputy Tourism Secretary Andrés Aguilar Becerril presented progress on the Quintana Roo 2050 Master Plan for Sustainable Tourism during World Tourism Day events. He described tourism as a multifactorial, multi-sector and interdisciplinary activity whose strategy must also cover security, the environment, communities, supply and demand.

State officials said about 700 people took part in drafting the update, including representatives from the public, private, academic and environmental sectors as well as local communities. The plan sets out four main pillars:

• Environmental management and climate change
• Land-use planning and carrying capacity
• Shared social prosperity
• Alignment with global agendas

Aguilar Becerril said the Covid-19 pandemic served as a warning that global shocks can hit the industry hard, making it necessary to anticipate change. The analysis accounts for the specific needs of each resort area and incorporates international trends shaping tourism’s future, including digitalization that lets travelers book services and plan trips from mobile devices.

The goal is to keep tourism as one of the state’s main economic engines while steering it toward a more sustainable model that spreads its benefits more widely. The state government presented the roadmap in September 2026 with a vision extending to 2050.

Meanwhile, competition keeps intensifying from both international and domestic destinations. Hotel room supply grows every year, raising the bar for competitive occupancy levels, and the state must also contend with promotion, air connectivity, security and environmental conditions.

The challenge for Quintana Roo is to sustain tourism activity while diversifying its offerings and reducing its economic dependence on a single industry — responding to market shifts without losing the competitiveness of the Mexican Caribbean.