Mexico received 38.5% more international tourists in November than in the same month of 2020, still marked by the coronavirus pandemic, the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi) reported on Monday.
Mexico went from receiving 2 million foreign tourists in November 2020 to almost 2.9 million last November. However, if the figure is compared with the 3.84 million of the eleventh month of 2019, a substantial drop of 24.5% is still observed.
The main rebound occurred in tourists arriving by air, which in November 2020 represented only about 726,000 people and in the same month of 2021 there were about 1.55 million travelers, 113.8% more.
Border tourists, on the other hand, fell 9.4% year-on-year in November to one million travelers.
The data respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, a disease that so far has caused more than 4.1 million infections and more than 300,000 deaths in Mexico, one of the most affected countries in the world.
In November 2021, total tourist spending soared 148.9% year-on-year from $ 857 million to $ 2,133.3 million.
In addition, if the data from last November is compared with that of the same month of 2019, the current one is higher by more than 230 million dollars.
The average expenditure of each tourist rose year-on-year, going from 218.8 dollars in November 2020 to 426.2 dollars in the eleventh month of this year, 94.8% more.
Significantly, the average tourist spending in November 2021 is even higher at 92.7% compared to the 2019 data, when it was $ 221.2.
On June 1, 2020, the so-called “new normal” began in Mexico with an economic and social opening in phases after two months of a health emergency that paralyzed non-essential activities.
Mexico’s tourism GDP, which until before the health crisis caused by the coronavirus represented 8.7% of the national gross domestic product (GDP) in 2019, would close this 2021 in a proportion of 7.1% and in 2022 in 8.3%, according to government estimates .
Even so, Mexico was the third most visited country in the world in 2020, a temporary phenomenon that is attributed to flexible sanitary measures in the country’s tourist areas.
Mexico was consolidated in 2019 as one of the ten most visited countries in the world with more than 45 million international tourists, who left 24.563 million dollars, an annual growth of 9%.
