This year, with the increase in sargassum, businesses in Quintana Roo are being hit harder, as the daily beach cleanup by hotels is costing them roughly the same as their electricity bill, according to the Tulum Hotel Association.
Hoteliers in the area estimate that they spend up to $150 million annually on sargassum cleanup, since the sargassum season runs from April to September, but large quantities have been reported on Mexican beaches between January and February. In Tulum, 244 tons were collected in February, compared to 59 tons in the same month of 2025.
“This is not normal at all. Everything indicates that this year will be even worse than 2025,” said David Buchanan, director of the government agency that manages the Mexican coast in Tulum, according to Expansión.
“There is eight times more biomass now than at this same time last year, more than we have ever seen at this time of year, and even almost more than at the peak of the sargassum season in this area,” says Brian Barnes, a researcher at the Optical Oceanography Laboratory at the University of South Florida.
David Ortiz Mena, president of the Tulum Hotel Association, said that “for the Mexican tourism sector, sargassum is very unpredictable. There can be sargassum one day and none the next, and there are many areas where it is almost never present.”
He also stated that hotels have suffered from low occupancy rates, partly due to the presence of the macroalgae. “In 2025, we had a worse occupancy rate than expected, which coincided with the arrival of enormous quantities of sargassum,” Ortiz Mena commented.
This year, the arrival of sargassum seaweed on Quintana Roo’s beaches is unprecedented, making summer the most affected season, according to Brian Barnes, a researcher at the Optical Oceanography Laboratory of the University of South Florida.
“There is eight times more biomass now than at this same time last year, more than we have ever seen at this time of year, and even almost more than at the peak of the sargassum season in this area,” Barnes said.
With a projection of between 50,000 and 60,000 tons of sargassum during the 2026 season—double the amount reached last year—the Playa del Carmen City Council is moving forward with expanding the marine barrier system, which will extend up to five kilometers, in coordination with the Mexican Navy, the state government, and the hotel sector. (Sargassum surge in Playa del Carmen prompts hotel plans).
Meanwhile, several hotel complexes have already begun installing their own containment systems as part of their preventative strategy for the peak sargassum season. Among the hotels that have already started work are Paradisus, Coco Beach, Wyndham Alltra, and Velas, among others.
Source: reportur
