The arrival of international travelers to the country cooled down in July, a month in which the flow of international tourists grew 0.7 percent annually, reported the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI), which shows the symptoms of slowdown that analysts in the sector had warned about.
The 0.7 percent growth is the worst since March 2021, when the indicator plummeted 17.1 percent annually due to the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. In addition, it is the worst performance for a July since 2020 when a 66.6 percent annual drop in the arrival of international visitors was reported due to the health emergency.
An analysis by El Financiero shows that the result obtained in July is the lowest for a month in terms of international tourist arrivals since the impact of Covid-19.
The figures for July detail that 3.9 million international tourists entered the country, a marginal increase of just under 28 thousand foreigners compared to the same month of the previous year.
The National Tourism Business Council (CNET) warned a few days ago of the possible formation of a perfect storm that would have negative effects on the entry of international tourists, of which an initial impact can already be seen in the results of the seventh month of the year.
In addition to the marginal growth, which reveals a competitive tourism market and a lower dynamism in the supply of seats on cross-border flights, total spending grew at a slower pace than the flow of tourists.
Thus, the income from tourist currencies increased 0.5 percent on an annual basis, to just over 2,947 million dollars.
In this area, INEGI reported negative behaviors in the performance of tourist currencies linked to the entry of tourists by air, with a fall of 1.4 percent annually.
International air activity has strengthened in supply due to the problems of national airlines with P&W engines; However, political turbulence due to the presidential campaign in the United States and a greater offer from US airlines to Canada put pressure on the result.
Tourism in Mexico, COVID Mexico begins to ‘run out’ as a tourist destination for foreigners.
Meanwhile, the average expenditure, that is, what an international tourist spent on average during their visit to Mexico in July, fell 0.2 percent compared to the same period last year.
Although this decrease is equivalent to one dollar less spent by each international tourist, this indicator had remained in positive territory for most of the year.
Foreign tourists ‘send the plane to fly’
Although the arrivals of international tourists as a whole remained in positive territory, the income of these travelers by plane had a year-on-year drop of 3.6 percent during July, a result that confirms the negative trend warned by CNET and the Center for Advanced Research in Sustainable Tourism (Starc) of the Anáhuac Cancún University.
In an interview with El Financiero, Francisco Madrid, director of Starc, said that “it is confirmed that we have a year-on-year decrease in July 2024 compared to the same month last year.”
He stressed that “with the first data from August, in Cancun, Cabo and Vallarta, this month will also have negative results, so we believe that we are reaching a challenging moment for the industry.”
The number of international tourists who arrived in the country by air during the month of July is also lower than that recorded during the same month in 2022, so a downward trend is noted.
The causes of the fall, explains Madrid, are no longer only in the strength of the peso, which has lost value against the dollar, and insecurity, but there has begun to be talk in the sector of an “exhaustion of the destination.”
“Tourists who did not have many options to travel during the pandemic were able to come to Mexico because it was open, and perhaps return, but now that things are back to normal, they are looking for other destinations,” said the director of Starc.
In July, the Migration Policy Unit reported that the arrival of Americans decreased by 0.7 percent compared to the same month of the previous year, while the entry of Canadians into the country in that same period decreased by more than 6 percent.
Source: elfinanciero
