President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo landed in Tulum on Thursday afternoon, opening a three day visit to Quintana Roo that began with a walk through Parque del Jaguar and a closed door meeting with business owners.
The trip matters because the president chose to open it in the one place where federal management, tourism revenue, and local anger have been colliding since the park opened. What she heard on Thursday will shape what she announces on Friday morning, when the presidential press conference moves to Tulum.
A hangar meeting with hoteliers, artisans, and fishers
Accompanied by Governor Mara Lezama Espinosa, Sheinbaum met representatives of several productive sectors in the hangar of Military Air Base Number 12, next to Tulum's Felipe Carrillo Puerto International Airport. Hoteliers, merchants, artisans, and fishers attended. The meeting ran without access for reporters, and no minutes have been released.
The federal delegation was substantial. Tourism Secretary Josefina Rodríguez Zamora, Environment Secretary Alicia Bárcena Ibarra, representatives of the Mundo Maya company, and officials from other federal agencies joined the tour alongside the governor.
A security operation was deployed at several points in the municipality. Local reports said the president would stay at a hotel in the area during her time in the destination, though no authority has confirmed that.
Citizens hand the president an alleged property seizure case
During the Parque del Jaguar walk, a group of citizens approached Sheinbaum to describe what they called the seizure of a property. According to their account, officials of the Quintana Roo Fiscalía General del Estado took part in the case. They asked the president to have the file reviewed and to follow the matter personally.
None of that has been tested. The claim was made in public, in front of the head of the federal executive, and it points at a state institution rather than a federal one. The Fiscalía has not responded publicly, and the identities of the parties involved were not disclosed at the park.
A dispute over changes to the Tulum National Park management plan
The second case put to the president concerned reported modifications to the management plan of Parque Nacional de Tulum, administered by the National Commission of Natural Protected Areas, Conanp. The people who raised it said the changes affect groups tied to both conservation work and the economic use of the protected area.
Those two threads, land tenure and the rules governing a protected area, sit underneath most of Tulum's coastal conflicts. Parque del Jaguar folded the Tulum National Park and the Jaguar Flora and Fauna Protection Area into a single federal project, with Conanp responsible for ecosystems and a Defense Ministry company running operations and services. Complaints about fees, beach access, and signage have not stopped since.
The Sheinbaum Tulum visit lands on a destination losing visitors
Figures cited in national coverage ahead of the trip put the problem in numbers. Between January and April, Tulum received 522,705 tourists, 21,718 fewer than in the same months of 2025. Passenger traffic at the airport fell 31 percent. The archaeological zone lost 28 percent of its visitors. Hotel occupancy averaged 73 percent, below the 80 percent registered across the Riviera Maya.
Business owners have also filed complaints about drug retailing, extortion, protection payments, and violence around the tourist corridor, alongside rising costs and gaps in basic services.
At her morning press conference in Mexico City on Thursday, before flying out, Sheinbaum described the trip in plain terms. She said discontent persists among people arriving in Tulum, that she would see exactly what is happening with all the institutions present, and that she would talk to hoteliers and merchants about how to resolve it.
Sargassum capture at sea and the first cargo locomotives
The second axis of the tour is sargassum, which has landed in greater volume on the Mexican Caribbean coast this year. Sheinbaum said the federal government is pushing a strategy that includes capturing the algae at sea before it reaches the beaches, together with projects to recycle and transform it.
The third is the cargo version of the Maya Train. The first locomotives have arrived, and the president will inspect them during the tour. The federal argument is logistical connectivity for the southeast, though the freight service still has to prove it can move volume at a price shippers accept.
Friday's morning conference from Military Air Base Number 12
Sheinbaum leads her morning press conference from Tulum at 8:30 a.m. local time on Friday, July 17, from Military Air Base Number 12 beside the airport. That is where the agreements from Thursday's meetings are expected to surface, along with whatever the government intends to do about the cases handed to her at the park.
The rest of the schedule runs north. On Friday evening she travels to Playa del Carmen for a property deed delivery event. On Saturday, July 18, she supervises the Vivienda para el Bienestar program at the Arcos Paraíso development in Cancún. On Sunday, July 19, she presents the federal sargassum strategy from the Maya Train station at Cancún airport, closing the tour.
Two of the three items on her list, the park and the seaweed, are things Tulum has been complaining about for years. The measure of this visit will be whether Friday produces instructions with dates attached or another round of working groups.
Do you think the president's visit will change how Parque del Jaguar is run, or is this another round of promises? Join the conversation and share your perspective with us on Instagram and Facebook at @thetulumtimes.