Pack your bags and head to one of the hottest destinations of 2016 because the year looks bright and busy for the warm tourist city.
The Cancun Convention & Visitors Bureau announced that Cancun welcomed more than 5 million visitors in 2015, breaking the previous record of 4.8 million set the year before. According to the Cancun and Puerto Morelos Hotel Association (AHC), the city’s average hotel occupancy rate reached an all-time high of 82 percent. This represents a one percent increase when compared to the same period in 2014, even after the addition of 700 new rooms to the destination. The association also reported that Cancun was the preferred destination for travelers in Mexico and that its average occupancy rate beat other resort cities like Los Cabos.
Projections for 2016 are looking bright for Cancun as well, as Expedia named it the top international destination for package bookings, beating cities like Las Vegas and New York. Cancun was also named the most important beach destination for meetings and conventions, with business tourism representing almost 20 percent of all arriving visitors in 2015.
The recently expanded Cancun International Airport has also seen an increase in connectivity to the U.S. this past year from multiple airlines and it’s currently working on the addition of a new terminal.
Through the addition of new hotels and restaurants in the coming year, Cancun plans to continue expanding the destination’s current tourism offerings. Tour operators and hoteliers also expect to see an increase of four percent in overall visitors to the destination this year.