Mexico City, Mexico — The Ministry of Tourism of Mexico says the country is working on fulfilling several large tourism projects in 2023. The Secretary of Tourism of the Government of Mexico, Miguel Torruco Marqués, announced that during 2023, they have planned several large projects that will promote tourism in various areas of the country.
Torruco says that this year, the Mar de Cortés Aquarium will be inaugurated in Mazatlán, Sinaloa, which will position itself as the largest in Latin America. It will be opened along with the already inaugurated Callejón de los Beatles, among other Pacific tourist attractions.
Also on the list is the modernization and construction of airports such as the one in Creel, Chihuahua.
He noted that in 2021, Mexico consolidated itself as the 2nd most visited country in the world, going from 17th to 9th in foreign exchange and from 40 to 29 in per capita spending.
He also highlighted the inauguration of the Maya Train at the end of the year, which he says, is the country’s largest tourism project in 60 years. He says the Maya Train will detonate tourism in southeastern Mexico to reduce years of lag in this region.
The train will consist of 1,524 kilometers of railway with 20 stations and 190 high-impact tourist attractions through the states of Yucatán, Quintana Roo, Campeche, Tabasco and Chiapas.
Torruco Marqués specified that like this project, the Secretariat under his charge is working on the development of anchor products in the different states of the country with the purpose of diversifying tourist activity as well as increasing the per capita spending of visitors.
He pointed out that other anchor products will be added to other projects that have been inaugurated in other states including the Museum of Mexican Hospitality in Orizaba, Veracruz, the Armando Manzanero Museum in Mérida, Yucatán, the GNP Seguros Arena, scene of the Mexican Tennis Open, in Acapulco, Guerrero and Chinatown (La Chinesca) in Mexicali, Baja California.
He reported that the Barrancas del Cobre Airport is expected to start operations this year in Creel, Chihuahua, and that work is being done on the expansion and remodeling of the airports of Tepic, Nayarit from Tamuin, San Luis Potos, Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca as well as the construction of the Tulum Airport in Quintana Roo.
Other strategic projects on the list include the highway that will connect the city of Oaxaca with the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, the Mexico-Toluca Interurban Train and the project that will facilitate the connectivity of the Felipe Ángeles International Airport with the center of Mexico City, including the expansion of the Suburban Train.
Torruco Marqués affirmed that despite the criticism, large tourism projects will catapult Mexico as a world power, reiterating that since the recovery of the sector began after the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021, Mexico was placed, temporarily, in second place in arrivals of international tourists only below France.
However, it was also ranked ninth in foreign exchange earnings from tourism and 29th in per capita spending, when at the beginning of the administration, in these areas, Mexico placed 17 and 40, respectively.
