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According to official numbers Los Cabos has surpassed Puerto Vallarta as the second most visited beach destination in Mexico. The most visited spot for both national and international tourists in Mexico continues to be the Cancun area, even increasing its lead throughout the first months of 2022. Los Cabos has made some significant strides to attract more visitors, and has seen the number of tourists coming to the region surpass pre-pandemic records.
How Many People Have Arrived In Los Cabos Throughout The Year?
More than 250 thousand people on average are arriving in Los Cabos every month. Through the Spring Break season in March alone more than 325 thousand tourists arrived in Los Cabos. The month of April broke historic arrival records with more than 200 thousand tourists arriving in the region. For comparison Puerto Vallarta took in 650 thousand tourists over a three month span in Los Cabos numbers were in the 750 thousand range within the same 3 month span.
These monthly arrivals, particularly with the peaks around the spring break season, and the summer months are going to allow Los Cabos to likely surpass the 2.8 million mark which was the number of tourists that arrived to this part of the Mexican Pacific last year. Already in 2021, Los Cabos had been able to overtake Puerto Vallarta which only registered the arrival of 2.5 million tourists in the entire year.
The Summer Months Are Expected To Be Full of Travelers
The Secretary of Tourism for Mexico, Miguel Torruco Marques recently revealed the projections that his government agency has for the summer months. He mentioned that 51 million travelers are expected to head towards different destinations throughout the country.
Ironically Los Cabos isn’t necessarily expected to be filled to the brim. In fact, in secretary Torruco Marques’ projections Los Cabos hotels are only expected to reach a 67% occupancy rate average while Puerto Vallarta facilities should see an average of 71% occupancy over the months of July and August.
One of the potential reasons why projections for Los Cabos could be a bit lower than expected especially considering that Los Cabos has already beaten out Puerto Vallarta in number of hosted travelers in 2021, is the fact that national tourists are set to make up the bulk of the total number of travelers who will head to different parts of the country. Hotels are currently reporting that on their books about 78% of the reservations are being made by locals while only 22% of the rooms will be filled by international tourists. Los Cabos usually receives a higher percentage of foreign tourists compared to other parts of the country.
Catching Up To Cancun Seems Like Mission Impossible For Los Cabos
As previously mentioned, Cancun remains by far and away the most visited destination in Mexico. Throughout 2022 it’s even experienced a 25% increase in the number of travelers that have decided to head to the Mexican Caribbean. While Los Cabos has certainly rebounded nicely in the post pandemic era it still isn’t able to host as many travelers as Cancun. Perhaps that’s even a good thing though for Los Cabos. The south tip of the state of Baja California is more known as a private high end vacation spot, and the type of facilities that are being built around the region reflect that.
A couple more reasons why Cancun is going to remain on top include the number of flights that reach the Mexican Caribbean. The Cancun airport gets on average 500 flights taking off or landing in one day. Also, the area is home to at least 5 or more different nearby cities that are vacation spots in their own right. These include the Cancun main city, Cozumel Island, Playa del Carmen, Tulum, and others.