Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, Sept. 15, 2026 — Mexico’s tourism surplus fell 9.6% during the first seven months of 2026, its steepest comparable decline since the pandemic disruption of 2020.
The Sept. 15 analysis that identified the decline used figures from Mexico’s international traveler survey. We confirmed the totals against the updated official traveler-account tables.
The surplus reached $13.106 billion, down from $14.502 billion one year earlier. Inbound receipts rose 0.3% to $21.743 billion, while spending by Mexico residents abroad climbed 20.3% to $8.637 billion.
Puerto Vallarta has a separate warning signal
The national balance does not measure Puerto Vallarta hotel receipts, restaurant sales, wages or local tax collections. It also creates no change to travel fees, fares or regulations.
Local airport figures, however, show that Puerto Vallarta entered the period with weaker passenger traffic.
The airport operator’s August report counted 4.233 million passengers from January through August. That was 12.4% fewer than during the same period in 2025.
International traffic fell 19.7% to 2.178 million passengers. Domestic traffic declined 3% to 2.055 million.
August alone brought 426,900 passengers, a 10.3% annual decline. International passenger traffic fell 26.3%, as PVDN reported after reviewing the August airport figures.
The airport data cover passenger movements, not spending. They cannot show revenue at businesses along Boulevard Francisco Medina Ascencio or in Marina Vallarta, the Hotel Zone, Centro and Zona Romántica.
Likewise, no official dataset reviewed by PVDN assigns Mexico’s $21.743 billion in inbound receipts to individual cities or Puerto Vallarta neighborhoods.
More travelers produced little additional revenue
Mexico received 59.706 million international travelers from January through July, according to the official tables. That was 7% more than one year earlier.
Average inbound spending moved in the opposite direction. It fell 6.2% to $364.17 per traveler.
Receipts from international tourists who stayed at least one night declined 0.1% to $19.827 billion. Spending by nonborder tourists fell 1.7% to $18.267 billion.
Border tourism offset part of that decline. Receipts from border tourists rose 24% to $1.560 billion. National cruise-excursion spending increased 17.3% to $648.9 million.
Those differences matter for Puerto Vallarta because growth concentrated at land borders does not represent demand at Pacific air destinations.
The INEGI report for July showed 8.651 million inbound travelers, up 2.9% from July 2025. Their total spending fell 1.3% to $2.961 billion.
Average spending across all inbound travelers declined 4.1% to $342.30.
The result was different among nonborder tourists arriving by air. Their numbers fell 5.7% to 1.850 million, but average spending increased 2.5% to $1,223.20. Total spending by that segment still declined 3.3%.
Spending abroad drove the loss of surplus
Our calculation from the official cumulative tables shows inbound receipts added $61.4 million compared with 2025.
Over the same period, outbound traveler spending increased by $1.457 billion. The difference reduced the tourism surplus by $1.396 billion.
Mexico recorded 47.493 million resident traveler departures through July, an increase of 9.7%. Average outbound spending rose another 9.7%, reaching $181.86 per departure.
Spending by residents who stayed overnight outside Mexico increased 26.4% to $6.347 billion. Their departures rose 12.8% to 12.455 million.
The same pattern continued in July. Resident departures declined 0.7%, but outbound spending rose 12.7% to $1.328 billion. Average spending increased 13.5% to $203.40.
July’s tourism surplus was $1.633 billion, down about 10.4% from the same month in 2025.
The sharpest decline since 2020
Our review of the official monthly balance series confirms that 2026 produced the largest January-to-July decline since 2020.
The surplus fell 51.1% during the comparable period in 2020, when international travel was disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The January-to-July balance then increased each year from 2021 through 2025. Growth had slowed to 2.3% in 2024 and 0.3% in 2025 before the 9.6% decline this year.
How the figures are measured
The tourism surplus is not the profit earned by hotels, restaurants, or other tourism businesses. It is the difference between spending by international travelers in Mexico and spending by Mexico residents abroad.
INEGI’s International Traveler Survey covers tourists who stay overnight and excursionists who do not. The July survey design used 22,922 interviews, according to its methodology.
INEGI classifies the results as preliminary and subject to revision. The survey measures national cross-border travel, while the Puerto Vallarta airport report counts terminal passengers. The two datasets therefore describe related but different parts of tourism activity.
