Tulum Vacation Rentals Push Tourists Into Irregular Zones, Hotel Leader Warns

Tulum, Quintana Roo — The runaway growth of vacation rentals in Tulum is steering visitors into areas with no basic infrastructure and piling pressure on public services, the head of the Mexican Caribbean’s hotel council warned.

David Ortiz Mena, president of the Mexican Caribbean Hotel Council (Consejo Hotelero del Caribe Mexicano) and of the Tulum Hotel Association, said the fallout — real estate speculation, strain on utilities and the risks of hosting tourists in unsuitable locations — is a serious problem not just for hotels but for the destination as a whole.

Active vacation rentals in Tulum account for about 19% of all such listings available across Quintana Roo, even though the municipality holds only 8.5% of the state’s hotel rooms. In other words, its share of the state’s rental market is more than double its weight in hotel supply.

That translates to 4,295 active properties in Tulum — a disproportionate figure considering that Cancún, which has nearly four times as many hotel rooms, registers 6,273.

Some 95% of Tulum’s listings are entire properties rather than rooms inside a home, and many sit in areas that lack adequate infrastructure or conditions to receive tourists, Ortiz Mena said.

“Many of these vacation rentals are offered in invasion zones,” he said. “What kind of experience can a visitor who goes in there take away? Any negative impact won’t be felt only by the owner of that place, but by the entire destination.”

Guests in those properties still need water, sewage, electricity, garbage collection and security, he added — demands that add to the burden on services and authorities already struggling to deliver quality attention to residents and visitors alike.

Uneven enforcement of sanitation fees

Municipal law requires hosts and platform intermediaries to withhold the Environmental Sanitation Fee, which funds sanitation and environmental work that also benefits rental guests. The challenge, Ortiz Mena said, is making sure every listing actually charges the fee and turns the money over to the authorities.

The expectation of guaranteed profits from the rental model also fueled a construction rush, leaving many buildings unfinished — structures that could become focal points for crime.

“We are not addressing this problem with the urgency it requires,” Ortiz Mena said. “We are far behind the rules already in force in other destinations. In Madrid, as in the rest of Spain, everyone staying in one of these apartments must provide identification data. Here there is no equivalent control, even though we face a particularly serious problem of human trafficking and the sexual exploitation of minors. Hotels do have protocols to prevent these crimes.”

He also pointed to Paris, where a primary residence can be rented to tourists for no more than 90 days a year, while additional properties require change-of-use authorizations and far stricter conditions.

Ortiz Mena made clear he is not calling for hotels to be the only option. The issue, he said, shows the need for better and more effective regulation of vacation rentals in order to protect the destination’s image and the significant economic activity the sector generates.