Puerto Vallarta (PVDN) – During January, Mexico received 6,365,169 visitors, of which 3,397,200 were international tourists, reported the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi), that is, 28.5% more than last year.
During the first month of this year, the income of foreign currency referring to the total expenditure of international visitors amounted to 2.8 billion dollars, a figure higher than the 1.9 billion of the same month of the previous year.
Of the total number of tourists that entered the country in that period, 88.9% did so by air and the remaining 11.1% by land, mainly through the border between Mexico and the United States.
According to Inegi data, the average cost of tourists who entered by air was $1,225 dollars, which at the exchange rate is around $20,000 Mexican pesos.
Before the health crisis, Mexico’s tourism gross domestic product (GDP) represented 8.6% of the national economy in 2019, and in 2021 it dropped to 7.1%. According to government estimates, the year 2022 is estimated to have closed at 8.3%.
Even so, Mexico was the third most visited country in the world in 2020, a temporary placement that is attributed to flexible sanitary measures in the tourist areas of the country.
Before the pandemic, Mexico was listed in 2019 as one of the 10 most visited countries in the world, with more than 45 million international tourists who left 24.5 billion dollars, an annual growth of 9%.
Regarding the projections for 2023, Mexico could reach 31.1 billion dollars in income from international tourists, which would exceed pre-pandemic levels, the Ministry of Tourism (Sectur) estimated at the end of February.
The Secretary of Tourism, Miguel Torruco, pointed out that this figure is equivalent to an increase of 11.3% compared to 2022 and 26.8% higher than what was observed in 2019, just prior to the covid-19 virus pandemic.
In addition, he estimated that by 2023, 39.4 million international tourists will arrive in Mexico, which is 2.7% more than in 2022.
