Hoteliers in the Riviera Maya fear that sargassum will drive away tourism

The Business Coordinating Council of the Riviera Maya announced its concern about the late installation of anti-sargasso barriers, which caused the algae to wash up on the beaches of this tourist area

(CCE).- The President of the Business Coordinating Council of the Riviera Maya (CCE), Lenin Amaro Betancourt, pointed out that the problem of sargassum that is currently being experienced on the coasts of this area of ​​Quintana Roo is due to the late response of the authorities to place the barriers of containment, a situation that has caused tons of seaweed to land on the Quintana Roo coasts in huge amounts

The macroalga continues to arrive in great volume, being the coast of said region of the Entity the most affected, registering around 10 tons daily, service providers, businessmen, and authorities cannot cope with this situation, for what Amaro Betancourt expressed this has increased to a greater extent in recent times due to the fact that the authorities in charge of placing the barriers do not
They have done it in a timely manner.

We still have problems because there is what we call a large window, there is a massive arrival there, unfortunately, the barriers were not put up in a timely manner for 2.5 kilometers, and then the functionality of the two sargacera vessels is very slow, that is why we see the great arrival of the macroalgae that affects various sectors that we have in the Riviera Maya, from micro, medium and large entrepreneurs, from all
items,” he said.

He pointed out that alternatives must be sought with technology to be able to use sargassum since progress has been made in science and something can be done to take advantage of the algae and not be a problem, since if this situation continues it will be harming all business sectors of the Riviera Maya, we are about to start Holy Week and many come to the beaches of Quintana Roo for their beautiful colors but if they are full of sargassum, they make tourism no longer want to come.

He also stated that: “work must be done to find a way to use sargassum, we need a company that can use it as a biofertilizer or something that works, but in the meantime, we are already at Easter and this situation has not been resolved and we are concerned. much”.

It is noteworthy that the Sentinel-2 satellite of the European Space Agency passed over the Caribbean zone yesterday and managed to visualize 16.41 hectares of sargassum on the coast of Puerto Morelos, in front of the beaches of Akumal it detected 7.84 hectares, in Playa del Carmen managed to locate 17.21 hectares and on the coast of Tulum she registered 3.14 hectares of the marine plant; Similarly, in the Caribbean Sea, much further from the coast of Quintana Roo, but towards the Cancun Hotel Zone, he detected 44 hectares of macroalgae.

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