Cozumel is set to surpass the historic record of 2017, year in which it broke the barrier of 4.1 million cruise passengers. Statistics from the Ministry of Communications and Transportation reported that between January and June of 2018 the island had a 4.5% growth in cruise volume, against the same period last year.
During the first semester of 2018, Cozumel welcomed 2,257,694 cruise passengers, versus 2,160,043 in the same period last year.
In the first six months of 2017, a total of 675 of the so-called floating hotels docked in the island, while during the same period of 2018 the figure went up to 698; Cozumel received 53.9% of all cruises in Mexico, during the last referred period.
In 2017, the island closed with a total of 4,098,491 cruise passengers, while in 2016 the figure was 3,645,576.
The number of cruise passengers who arrived on the island last year represented 56.3% of the total passengers nationwide, which total volume was 7.2 million passengers.
The head of the Quintana Roo Integral Port Administration (Apiqroo), Alicia Ricalde Magaña, assured that the good rhythm in attracting cruises allows Cozumel to anticipate a new record for this year, with good possibilities of reaching 4.3 or 4.4 million cruise passengers. by the end of 2018, a figure never registered before in Cozumel.
(Photo: eleconomista.com.mx)
She assured that this fact is remarkable, because in the first quarter of the year one of the most critical events in the history of Quintana Roo was recorded, with the explosion of a passenger ferry that covered the Playa del Carmen-Cozumel route.
This event generated security alerts issued by the governments of countries such as the US, Canada and the UK.
“In spite of the incident, the cruise industry has not been affected and, on the contrary, it shows signs of a strength that allows it to overcome records in passenger volume and vessel arrivals,” she continued.
In August of 2017, Cozumel was added to the United States Department of State list of destinations with travel alerts. Local business chambers sent a letter to the US Embassy in Mexico, requesting the island to be removed from the list. Cozumel was mentioned next to Cancún, Playa del Carmen and Tulum, as cities in which the number of homicides had increased with respect to 2016.
Three months later, the United States issued another update of that alert, without removing the island from the list. However, Cozumel closed that year with 4.1 million cruise passengers, the highest number of visitors registered in its history.
Source: eleconomista.com.mx
