Although the governor of Chiapas, Rutilio Escandón Cadenas, boasts that the Maya Train has meant an increase for tourism in the state, the truth is that the number of travelers and visitors has decreased.
During the morning press conference on July 15, the Morena governor highlighted the “great benefits” that the Maya Train would have brought to the state. “Tourism, for example, has grown in a very important way,” he said.
As proof of this, he presented data related to arrivals at the Tuxtla Gutiérrez airport. “At the Ángel Albino Corzo airport, all this work of the Maya Train has been reflected, because this movement grows by 15% to 20% every year,” he said.
In fact, since the Palenque Maya Train station, which is the only one in Chiapas, was inaugurated at the end of December 2023, the number of travelers arriving at the airport of the Chiapas capital has decreased. According to data from the Chiapas State Committee for Statistical and Geographic Information (CEIEG), whose president is the governor himself, between January and April of this year 536,799 people have landed in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, 65,500 fewer than those who arrived during the same period in 2023.
In addition, the influx of visitors to the Ángel Albino Corzo airport is not the best indicator of the success of the Mayan Train, since it is located about six hours away from the city of Palenque and is not directly connected to it.
On Monday, the director of the Mayan Train, General Óscar David Lozano, stated that the Cancún-Palenque section has an average of only 250 passengers per day, since it has only two services, round trip.
Artisans and tour guides who work in the archaeological zone of Palenque told in May for the report The Army’s business in the Mayan Train extends to the archaeological zone of Palenque that they did not see an increase in the number of tourists since its entry into operation. In fact, data from the CEIEG show that between January and May 2024, there have been 143,645 visitors to the archaeological zone of Palenque, while in the same period of the previous year, 26,939 more arrived.
The same trend is recorded in the best-known archaeological sites closest to Palenque, such as Yaxchilán and Bonampak, which are located in a border area with Guatemala, which is disputed by criminal organizations.
The drop in the number of visitors coincides with the insecurity present in the state. In Chiapas, the number of victims of some crime has increased, from different types of robbery to kidnapping. In 2021, there were 15,153 victims, an increase of 13% compared to the previous year, that is, 1,753 more victims, according to data from the most recent edition (2022) of the National Survey of Victimization and Perception of Public Security (ENVIPE).
While from December to March, the perception of insecurity of the inhabitants of the Chiapas cities of Tuxtla and Tapachula has increased. In the first city, 74.5% of the inhabitants felt unsafe in March when in December it was 72.8%, according to data from the National Survey of Urban Public Security. In Tapachula, 86.5% of its inhabitants felt unsafe, compared to 84.2% in December 2023.
Tourism in Chiapas never recovered after the covid-19 pandemic, and just in 2021, clashes between cartels in the state became increasingly frequent.
“To attract tourism in Palenque we do not need a train, we need the insecurity in the state to end. A large number of tours to the archaeological sites of Yaxchilán and Bonampak have been cancelled, and on the road to San Cristóbal de Las Casas there are conflicts and blockades all the time. We really need the government to address all this,” said tour guide Mildred Lucas García.
Despite the insecurity, the plans for the complementary tourist works to the Mayan Train continue. At the morning press conference last Monday, the progress of other works that the National Defense Secretariat (Sedena) is building in Palenque was also presented. General Blas Andrés Núñez assured that no later than September 12, the Alberto Ruz L’Huillier site museum will open and that three days later it will be the turn of the Palenque Mayan Train Hotel, which is 40% complete and whose inauguration was initially scheduled for the end of November 2023.
Source: es-us.noticias.yahoo
