Tulum's tourism recovery depends on restoring hospitality and improving service, not only on promotion or natural beauty, said Manuel Rodríguez, president of the Tourism Promotion Council (Consejo de Promoción Turística).
His comments arrive as the destination works through its weakest stretch in years, with hotel occupancy down sharply and a costly promotion campaign already underway. For the workers and small businesses that depend on visitors, the point Rodríguez raises is blunt. Tulum needs to fix the experience it sells before the winter season decides how bad the year becomes.
A post-pandemic boom reshaped the destination's identity
Rodríguez said the rapid growth of recent years changed the essence of a place once known for its closeness to nature, its calm, and an offer built around the wellbeing of visitors. The surge that followed the Covid-19 pandemic brought a wave of commercial expansion and investment that lifted the local economy, he said, but it also pushed businesses toward a sameness centered on selling.
"Before, people came looking for rest, nature, and authentic experiences. Over time, many businesses started focusing more on selling than on offering added value to the visitor," he said.
The result, in his telling, is a market where one establishment looks much like the next, and where the qualities that first set Tulum apart became harder to find.
High prices and uneven service draw the loudest complaints
Among the most frequent observations from tourists, Rodríguez pointed to the high cost of some services, weak attention, and a lack of warmth in certain establishments. Those impressions, he said, shape how the destination is judged as a whole.
That critique matches what travelers have voiced publicly for months. State tourism figures and widely shared social media accounts through 2025 returned to the same themes, citing nightly hotel rates that climbed near 450 dollars, transportation costs that visitors called excessive, and fees to reach beaches that were long free. Rodríguez framed these as service and perception problems the sector can correct, rather than fixed conditions.
A call for businesses to coordinate instead of compete blindly
The central problem, in Rodríguez's view, is the absence of coordination among business owners and service providers facing shared challenges. He called for joint strategies to improve the urban image, raise service quality, and promote competitive prices.
He acknowledged a mood of pessimism in parts of the local economy, tied to the slowdown and to a string of business closures. Even so, he argued that Tulum keeps real competitive advantages through its natural attractions and the international recognition it still holds as a vacation destination.
What the occupancy numbers say about Tulum's tourism recovery
The data behind his concern is stark. Hotel occupancy in Tulum fell from 66.7 percent in September 2024 to 49.2 percent in September 2025, a drop of 17.5 percentage points, according to the Quintana Roo Tourism Ministry. During the summer, coastal occupancy ran near 30 percent, with some town-center figures far lower.
Air connectivity tells a similar story. Tulum's Felipe Carrillo Puerto International Airport, opened at the end of 2023, slipped out of the country's top 10 terminals for international arrivals during 2025 as carriers trimmed routes, according to federal aviation figures reported in Mexican media. The infrastructure exists. The demand that justifies it has been harder to hold.
The institutional response has been visible. In late October, state tourism authorities and Tulum's hotel sector launched a promotion campaign valued at 3.2 million dollars, aiming for winter occupancy near 80 percent. Federal authorities also opened new public beach access points and moved to simplify entry to the coastal Jaguar Park, after months of disputes over fees.
Hospitality and community as the route back
For Rodríguez, the path back runs through the values that built the destination in the first place, especially hospitality and a sense of community among the people who work in tourism. He returned to that idea to close.
"If we manage to work together, improve service, and make people feel welcome, Tulum can again be a leader in tourism," he said.
The winter months will test whether that message reaches the businesses he is addressing. The promotion campaign has set a high bar for occupancy, and the federal coordination committee created under President Claudia Sheinbaum continues to push changes on beach access and pricing. Whether visitors notice a warmer welcome, and a fairer one, is the part no campaign can guarantee.
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