More than 7 thousand people gathered in Edzná, Campeche to watch the solar eclipse

After acknowledging the attendance of 7,496 people with paid tickets to the archaeological site of Edzná, not counting children, students, and senior citizens, to observe the annular eclipse, and that expectations were exceeded, the Secretary of Tourism, Mauricio Arceo Piña, justified that no archaeological site has the parking capacity that the Casa de los Itzaes had on October 14.

He explained that the archaeological site of Edzná was the only site in the southeast that had the authorization of the Archaeology Council of the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), where there was an extraordinary influx of visitors.

He specified that according to INAH’s preliminary numbers, there were 7,496 paid attendees, without considering “that children, students, and senior citizens did not pay, so it was an extraordinary event”.

In view of the accumulation of vehicles that congested the surroundings of Edzná, he justified that “I did not expect so many people”, and argued that “no site (archaeological) has that capacity of parking spaces; in the whole year never so much space is occupied, but this helped a lot, we even made potholes, we did a prevention work, but the affluence was really extraordinary”, he insisted.

Regarding the economic revenue, he considered that perhaps the five million pesos estimated for the weekend were surpassed, since in the case of hotels in the capital city, there was an affluence of close to 100 percent.

He added that the estimates were surpassed, since in the monitoring of hotels they had at least 75 percent, but in the last hours of Friday it increased up to 85 percent, and at the beginning of the weekend all the hotels were occupied.

He stated that Airbnb also had a good lodging response since they sent him a bulletin where they informed him that 97 percent of their offer was occupied, which amounts to at least one thousand properties.

He stated that there was not so much publicity and diffusion, but that they took advantage of the networks in the local travel agencies, which are informed by the national associations, “and it was through them that we were able to replicate directly with all the service providers, with all the travel agencies and tour operators, move all that network that exists at a national level” and “it was that it gave us a great success”, he concluded.

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