Royal Caribbean Cozumel Project Risks Permanent Environmental Damage

Cozumel, Quintana Roo — The Royal Beach Club, a new project that cruise company Royal Caribbean plans to build at Playa Mia in Cozumel, Quintana Roo, projects serving up to 4,000 visitors daily despite permanent and irreversible environmental damage outlined in its Regional Environmental Impact Statement (MIA-R).

Royal Caribbean states in the MIA submitted to the Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat) that the works, on the last public beach west of Cozumel island, contemplate daytime recreational infrastructure with pools, restaurants, beach access, and sanitary services, without offering overnight accommodation. The project, if approved by Semarnat, will occupy a total area of 17.42 hectares.

According to Semarnat’s Ecological Gazette, the Royal Beach Club Cozumel project was submitted on November 20, 2025. One month later, on December 17, the Environmental Impact Statement entered the evaluation process by the secretariat.

In response, environmental organization Greenpeace Mexico stated in a communiqué that, far from being a sustainable initiative, the company acknowledges at least six severe impacts in its MIA.

Among the impacts that Royal Caribbean declares are from the reduction of vegetation cover—which includes medium jungle and coastal vegetation—to direct damage to mangroves, ecosystems protected by Mexican law and key for the natural defense of coasts and biodiversity.

The document also warns of the irreversible loss of native flora, including protected species, as well as the permanent reduction of wildlife habitat, which forces the forced displacement of numerous species.

Project Overview

The Royal Beach Club Cozumel will be located at kilometer 15+000 of the Southern Coastal Highway in Quintana Roo state. The MIA indicates that the project estimates a period of 26 years and 3 months of its useful life, of which 1 year and 3 months will be for the execution of preparation and construction stages. Meanwhile, the remaining 25 years will be for the operation and maintenance stage.

Royal Caribbean justifies that part of the area proposed for the project is located in an already impacted zone currently in use by the operation of a museum, a restaurant, bars, pools, slides, and other tourist activities, plus a pier that has its own authorizations.

“All of the above has a nature similar to what is intended to be implemented with the new club. This project is designed to offer a comprehensive tourist experience that includes entertainment, water activities, restaurants, and relaxation spaces, with a focus on sustainability and harmony with the natural environment,” reads the MIA.

The company also states that part of the area destined for the project development already has corresponding environmental impact authorizations. It even emphasized that this beach club is not infrastructure destined for hotel construction but rather recreational.

The Regional MIA indicates that the new beach club that Royal Caribbean seeks to build in Cozumel will include:

• Restaurants
• Pools with different depths
• Bathrooms with showers
• Direct access to the beach
• Varied support infrastructure

The document describes that the site is organized into six general zones:

1. Arrival zone
2. Main pool
3. Market (QSR)
4. North and South Beach
5. South Villa
6. BOH (Back of House) service areas

Meanwhile, the total project surface of 17.42 hectares would be organized as follows:

• 1.1 hectares located in the Federal Maritime-Terrestrial Zone (ZOFEMAT) destined for semi-permanent installations like beach chairs and beachfront cabanas
• 4.29 hectares in private land zone, which will be used for the main beach club infrastructure with restaurants, pools, operations buildings, bathrooms, access points, among others

In total, 5.39 hectares are destined for project development. The remaining 12.03 hectares of the project area will be assigned to free areas.

A Tourism Project That Could “Deplete” the Island’s Nature

Within the project justifications in the Regional MIA, the company states that Cozumel is among the places with the busiest cruise ports in the world, receiving more than 4.6 million cruise passengers in 2024, from more than 1,281 stops made that year.

Additionally, it presents 2025 tourism figures, with which it points out that in the first four months of that year, approximately 1.8 million cruise visitors entered, an increase of 3.5% compared to 2024.

The company projects, with these data, an annual flow that could exceed 5 million visitors if this new beach club is approved. Faced with the environmental impacts reported in the MIA, Greenpeace Mexico stated that “nature is not an object that can be relocated or mitigated without fatal consequences.”

Additionally, it summarized in three points how this megaproject puts the island’s future at risk:

1. The company admits in its own study that it will suffer “permanent, irreversible, cumulative, and synergistic” impacts, which turns the supposed sustainability into a simple administrative procedure.
2. There will be a collapse from saturation, as it plans to receive 1.4 million annual visitors in just 17 hectares, a massive human pressure on reefs and coasts that already face critical ecological stress.
3. The privatization of this space will cause, in addition to ecological damage, the risk of losing access to the last public beach in the area to convert it into an exclusive enclave for cruise tourists, as local communities denounce.

Greenpeace Mexico requests that Semarnat deny environmental authorization for the Royal Beach Club Cozumel project, since the design proposed by Royal Caribbean increases the risk of sedimentation, pollution, and ecological stress on the reef, a key ecosystem facing climate change.

In the campaign “No to Royal Caribbean’s Megaproject in Cozumel – Stop Royal Beach Club,” active on the Change.org platform, they call for gathering signatures to protect Playa Mia.

They state that this beach club “does not benefit the Cozumel population in any way” and “the government should not permit this type of project. We call on local authorities and the Quintana Roo government to listen to the voices of their people and take a clear position against the construction of this beach club.”

They also emphasize that Cozumel island already has “sufficient infrastructure to receive tourists while conserving its natural charms and supporting its community.”