Quintana Roo Slips to Second Place in Mexico Tourism Investment

Cancún, Quintana Roo — Quintana Roo has fallen to second place nationally in planned tourism investment, even as Mexico’s overall tourism portfolio grew 12 percent to more than $47 billion during the year’s second four-month period, the federal Tourism Department (Sectur) reported.

The shift comes as the Mexican Caribbean contends with a slump in visitor flows, after years in which the state led the country in tourism spending.

Tourism Secretary Josefina Rodríguez Zamora said the national investment pipeline keeps expanding, with the number of projects up 20 percent to 925, drawn from all 32 states.

Projects are concentrated in sun-and-beach destinations, along with cultural and business tourism, though the portfolio also includes ecotourism as well as health and wellness, gastronomy and religious tourism developments.

By segment, sun and beach accounts for 27 percent of projects, followed by cultural tourism at 24 percent, business tourism at 17 percent and ecotourism at 10 percent. The remaining projects cover health and wellness, food and religious tourism.

Nayarit, Quintana Roo, Nuevo León and Baja California Sur concentrate the largest amounts of scheduled investment, according to the report. Nayarit leads with 20 percent of the total, followed by Quintana Roo with 15 percent, Nuevo León with 10 percent and Baja California Sur with 8 percent.

In Quintana Roo’s case, the state accounts for 67 projects under development representing $7 billion in investment.

Compared with the first four-month period of the year, the portfolio rose 20 percent in the number of projects and 12 percent in investment value.