With 50 years of tourism business history, the winner of the 2023 Golden Jaguar of Tourism, Jorge Escalante Bolio, saw an atypical year in that industry in the state.
This year started very well for Yucatecan tourism, he considered, but in the second semester, activity fell especially business tourism, in which the main events are the organization of congresses, conventions, and incentives that leave a lot of economic benefit to the entity.
“It was an atypical year. According to my experience, I could see that the year started very well, but in the second half there was confusion because we did not have something firm in the business tourism niche.”
“Fortunately, some events took place and we must close the year well. It was an atypical, different year, we had to fight hard to keep hotel occupancy up.”
The director of the Amigo Yucatán travel agency considered that this decrease in the number of congresses and conventions in Yucatán was because they stopped investing in the promotion of this segment, which, little or much, always has a positive or negative impact.
In the case of the decline in cruise tourism, he believes there were various causes.
“I can talk about the case of business tourism, where a lot of effort has been made, but it has not been enough for this market niche. Everything adds up, from the factor of individual tourism to gastronomy and festivals, everything is good and adds up, but I have always said that there are niche markets in which we must always invest,” he stressed.
“The market niche of congress, convention and incentive tourism cannot be neglected due to the amount of money it generates, the amount of employment it generates and because it increases the average occupancy of hotels. A massive event generates greater consumption and the economic impact is broader than vacation tourism,” said the businessman.
Escalante pointed out that there is a recovery in tourism. “After the (Covid-19) pandemic, tourist preferences and experience changed a lot. Tourists are now more demanding, they ask for experiences on excursions, for their visit to the sites to be more experiential,” he noted.
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