RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Mexico received 57.9% fewer international tourists last February than in the same month of 2020, going from 3.77 million to 1.58 million travelers due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi) reported this Monday that the main decrease, of 69.8 %, was in tourists arriving by air, who in February of the previous year represented about 1.86 million people and in the same month of 2021 were only 561,955 travelers.
Border tourists decreased by 46.4% year-on-year in February to 888,826 travelers.
The decline results from the Covid-19 pandemic, a disease that has caused 2.28 million infections and more than 209,000 deaths in Mexico, one of the most affected countries in the world.
As a result of this health crisis, Mexico lost 66.1% of its foreign exchange income from tourism in February compared to the same month in 2020.
International travelers left US$799 million in the country in the second month of 2021, while in the same month of the previous year, they spent US$2.35 billion.
Average spending per tourist dropped from US$289 in February 2020 to US$235 in the second month of this year.
On June 1, 2020, the so-called “new normality” began in Mexico with a phased and very cautious economic and social opening after two months of a health emergency that paralyzed non-essential activities.
Although the drop in tourism at the beginning of the year is still very accentuated, the first month’s data are ostensibly better than the drop of more than 60% in July and August 2020, which can be interpreted as a gradual reactivation of the market.
The Mexican tourism industry, which contributes 8.7% of gross domestic product (GDP), will not fully recover until 2023, according to estimates by Miguel Torruco, Secretary of Tourism.
Even so, Mexico was the third most visited country in the world in 2020, according to estimates by the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), a conjunctural phenomenon attributed to flexible sanitary measures in the country’s tourist areas.
Mexico consolidated its position in 2019 as one of the 10 most visited countries globally with more than 45 million international tourists, who left US$24.56 billion, a growth of 9% annually.