Around 30 workers at the Kore Tulum Retreat and Spa Resort raised a red-and-black strike flag outside the hotel Saturday, demanding severance pay, unpaid vacations, and Christmas bonuses that management has not delivered following the resort's closure. Some of those affected say they worked at the property for more than 15 years and have received no response from the company.
The strike was formally declared at noon on May 16 by Uri Carmona Islas, syndical commissioner of the Confederación Revolucionaria de Obreros y Campesinos (CROC) in the Riviera Maya. Carmona confirmed that labor authorities and union representatives toured the hotel's facilities to verify conditions on site, and that a formal labor process is now underway while workers hold the premises.
Workers said they were dismissed without prior notice and without any explanation from hotel management. The strike, they added, will remain in place indefinitely until the company reaches an agreement on the owed benefits.
A Hotel That Had Already Been Dark for Months
The conflict did not emerge overnight. When inspectors from the Procuraduría Federal del Consumidor (Profeco) visited the Kore Tulum as part of a broader consumer protection sweep of Tulum's hotel zone in November 2025, they found the property completely inactive. Staff at the time told inspectors that the hotel had closed around June 2025 due to low occupancy.
That closure, quiet and with no public statement from the company, left workers in legal limbo. The Kore Tulum, located near the entrance to Parque del Jaguar on the coastal hotel strip, had operated for years as a boutique all-inclusive resort for adults, positioning itself as one of the few properties of its kind in Tulum. The closure went largely unnoticed publicly, but not by the people who depended on it.
A review posted on a major travel platform around the same period tells the story plainly: a guest had booked the hotel months in advance for a family wedding and arrived to find the gate shut. "I got no secondary hotel, just an FU," they wrote. "The security guard says hotel is closed."
The Broader Picture
The Kore Tulum dispute is taking place against a backdrop of sustained economic stress across the destination. Claudio Cortés Méndez, CROC commissioner in Tulum, warned in March 2026 that the destination had not fully recovered from a prolonged slump, with occupancy in some central areas falling as low as 40 percent during low season and some zones down 15 percent. He also noted that international tensions, including the conflict in Iran, had contributed to roughly 10 percent in reservation cancellations across the Riviera Maya.
The wider labor situation has deteriorated steadily. As recently as May 8, Uri Carmona confirmed that some hotels in the Riviera Maya had begun applying "solidarity rest days" instead of layoffs to preserve their payroll structures, and that at least two hotel companies had reported zero profits to tax authorities, a move that would allow them to avoid paying profit-sharing bonuses to employees. Carmona said he expected to reach fair agreements for workers, while acknowledging the year has been "atypical" for the sector.
What Workers Are Owed
The demands at Kore Tulum are specific: severance pay, outstanding vacation pay, and aguinaldo, the legally mandated Christmas bonus that Mexican labor law requires employers to pay annually. These are not discretionary benefits. Under the Ley Federal del Trabajo, they represent enforceable obligations tied to the collective bargaining agreement in place at the time of dismissal.
The CROC has confirmed that the walkout was triggered precisely because those obligations were not met following the hotel's closure. Whether management disputes the amounts, claims an inability to pay, or simply has not responded remains publicly unclear. No statement has been issued by the hotel's ownership or administration.
What Comes Next
The strike is formally established and legally validated, with labor authorities already involved in the process. Workers have made clear they will not stand down until a satisfactory agreement is reached. The CROC's involvement means the dispute now moves through formal channels, though timelines for resolution are uncertain.
For the workers standing outside a shuttered hotel they helped operate for years, the outcome is still open. For the destination, the episode adds another visible marker to a difficult stretch for its labor force.
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