Deserted beaches, nearly empty hotels, restaurants with no sales, and merchants apologizing to local tourists is the panorama in Tulum, a destination that just a few years ago was booming and surprised national and international tourists with exorbitant prices.
According to data from the Quintana Roo Tourism Information System, tourist influx shows a downward trend at the start of the 2025 fall season.
While during the week of July 26 to August 1, Tulum, an iconic site in the Riviera Maya, registered an occupancy rate of 62.6%, lower than other Quintana Roo destinations such as Costa Mujeres, Isla Mujeres, and Cancún, the latest report indicates that between September 27 and October 3, an occupancy rate of 54.2% was reported, a drop of 8.4 percent.
Flights to the Felipe Carrillo Puerto International Airport, located in that town, were also reduced by between 30 and 40 percent.
The situation in Tulum has gained visibility after merchants uploaded videos to social media like TikTok showing the low tourist influx and apologizing for “mistreatment” of Mexican tourists.
The comments feature testimonials from people who went to the vacation destination and had unpleasant experiences. These include the high costs of goods and services, aimed at foreigners and inaccessible to many Mexicans. Other comments include the minimum consumption fee on beaches and the difficulty of entering the beach.
“I’m glad because even the little stores wanted to sell you coke for 200 pesos. I hope they saved the time they had to enjoy it,” commented one user in one of the videos. In the same post, a user added: “Well, even for Mexicans, it was cheaper to travel to Europe than to go on vacation to Cancún itself. Tulum was already unthinkable; it was a rip-off.”
Likewise, the increase in sargassum during 2025, which registered a significant increase compared to other years, and the environmental deterioration of the area are also key factors.
Added to this is the insecurity, which has wreaked havoc on the town. Just in March 2025, the head of the Tulum Public Security Secretariat, Lieutenant Commander José Roberto Rodríguez Bautista, was assassinated.
In Quintana Roo, crimes such as drug trafficking and human trafficking in various forms, including sexual exploitation, have been reported. Cases of extortion against local businesses have also been reported.
Source: proceso
