The events that have happened in Jalisco, El Bajío or Ciudad Juárez are seen all over the world and of course they inhibit the arrival of tourists to our country”.
Braulio Arsuaga, president of the CNET.
Despite the fact that the recovery of tourism after the pandemic continues its course, with greater benefit in beach destinations, there are two current challenges: the degradation to category 2 of the aeronautical authority and the travel alerts that the United States has issued, considered the President of the National Tourism Business Council (CNET), Braulio Arsuaga.
“Insecurity is one of the issues that worries us and has been around for many years. The sector has been trying to sensitize the rulers to have better results. Today the country is painted in warnings from the US government and we do not have a way to be able to minimize or attack this through public relations or crisis containment. The events that have happened in Jalisco, El Bajío or Ciudad Juárez are seen all over the world and of course they inhibit the arrival of tourists to our country”.
Regarding the degradation by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), since May 2021, the director of the Anáhuac Tourism Competitiveness and Research Center (Cicotur), Francisco Madrid, estimated that Mexican airlines have lost 2.3 million passengers, which represents about 9,200 million pesos in sales.
If this situation continues, by the end of 2022 about 3 million passengers will have been lost.
At a press conference, both presented the advances of the Panorama of Tourist Activity, where the need to increase the promotion of Mexico’s attractions abroad was highlighted due to the opening of competing destinations such as Jamaica, the Bahamas and the Dominican Republic.
“We depend a lot on the US and the second emitting country (Canada) has a long period to recover (Cicotur estimates that in a couple of years it will return to pre-pandemic levels). In this context, any country that opens its doors and can attract tourists from the US puts us in a bind and complication,” Arsuaga said.
In this regard, Madrid said: at this time we have not reached a critical situation, what is rather happening is that we are returning to the starting point where we were. We benefited for a while (due to the opening of borders and proximity to the US) and now we are returning to competitive terrain and we have to act.
“You have to understand that for a time the conditions worked as they did, but if we want to gain ground in the markets we have to think of a different job than the one we have today. It is complicated that there are no international promotion instruments”, he added.
The system that doesn’t work
The president of CNET highlighted that another pending issue for the tourism sector is the operation of the airport system in the center of the country that the current government proposed before the cancellation of the Texcoco airport, which does not see progress.
“The country’s strategy has been to start up an airport system (Toluca, Mexico City and Santa Lucía) and it still has its strong challenges. There are no flights at Felipe Angeles International Airport (AIFA) or Toluca. In the case of the Mexico City International Airport (AICM) there are structural problems in a terminal that must be addressed and cause concern. It is an issue that we have touched on in several places”, commented the business leader.
The director of Cicotur highlighted that, despite the recovery of air passengers in the domestic market, AICM levels are well below 2018: “it is clear that sooner or later the most important airport in Mexico City will be AIFA And we have to have that certainty.”
