The Tren Maya Tulum hotel, a 352-room complex and the largest in the army-run chain, is running nearly empty, and a Querétaro couple says they spent their stay there as the only guests.
Their account puts a human face on a problem the operator has already admitted on paper. The hotel opened on November 30, 2024, at the center of the Tren Maya's tourism plan, and nearly a year later the government has still not released detailed occupancy figures for it. What has surfaced instead are the couple's story and Sedena's own documents, and both point in the same direction.
A couple alone in a 352-room complex
José Luis Mendoza and Lucía Aguirre, married 35 years, traveled from Querétaro drawn by low-season promotions and by Tulum's beaches, cenotes, archaeological zone, and food. They paid a little over 2,600 pesos a night, roughly 140 dollars, a rate they considered attractive for a recently built hotel.
What they did not expect was to have the place to themselves. According to the couple, once they checked in and were assigned their room, it became clear that only staff remained on site. "In the evenings they had to turn on the row of lights just for us," they said, describing a 352-room property lit for a single occupied room.
Reaching the hotel is itself unusual. Guests pass through two security filters operated by the National Guard, because the complex sits inside the Parque del Jaguar, an area administered by the armed forces. The couple said military personnel were visible from the moment they arrived, while civilian staff were concentrated mainly in concierge and public relations roles.
Inside the Tren Maya Tulum hotel and its military operation
The Tren Maya Tulum hotel spreads across 13.5 hectares, making it the largest of the lodging complexes the army built to complement the railway. Its rooms are marketed as Master Room units, and the property advertises pools, a spa, a temazcal, and a restaurant, along with trails that connect to the Tren Maya station, the Tulum archaeological zone, the Museo de la Costa Oriental, and other points inside the Parque del Jaguar.
The hotel is one of the lodging centers developed to support the railway's tourism offer. The work was carried out by the military consortium Grupo Aeroportuario, Ferroviario y de Servicios Auxiliares Olmeca-Maya-Mexica, known as GAFSACOMM, the state company that also runs the train, airports, and parks. In June 2025, Sedena and the tourism ministry relaunched the chain under a new name, Grupo Mundo Maya, seeking better market positioning for hotels that were struggling to fill.
Sedena's own contracts admit the rooms went unsold
The clearest confirmation of the problem comes from the operator itself. In contract documents cited by national outlets, Sedena recognized that reservations during the winter holidays fell short at the Tren Maya Tulum hotel, stating that the property did not meet its established goals or its projected income after opening.
To respond, GAFSACOMM hired an outside firm, Delgado Cortés y Asociados, for a program described as diagnosis and intervention in service culture. The contract tied to the Tulum hotel cost about 2.2 million pesos and covered five-hour workshops for 58 employees in early 2025. Additional contracts across the chain brought the total to roughly 13.1 million pesos.
Reporting by La Silla Rota, based on figures released in early 2026, found that Tulum ranked among the lowest in occupancy across the network despite being the biggest, with capacity for close to 996 guests. The same reporting indicated Sedena spent tens of millions of pesos during 2025 on advertising and promotion for the hotels.
The spending behind the empty rooms
The investment behind the network is substantial. For the six-hotel program, Sedena projected an outlay close to 5.9 billion pesos. Forbes México, citing Sedena documentation, reported that the Tulum hotel alone carried a total construction cost of 684.9 million pesos across its stages.
Part of the information tied to the construction remains classified. One figure that did become public illustrates the sensitivity around the project's costs. Journalist Jorge García Orozco, through a public information request, reported that the army paid 1,136,000 pesos for the scale model of the Tulum hotel displayed during the September 16, 2024 military parade.
For now, the government continues to promote the chain through packaged tours that bundle flights from the Felipe Ángeles airport, train travel, and hotel stays, with prices ranging from about 17,000 pesos for four nights to nearly 25,000 pesos for six. Whether that strategy lifts occupancy at the Tulum property, and whether Sedena releases detailed guest numbers to measure it, remains to be seen. Until then, the couple from Querétaro stands as one of the few documented experiences inside a complex built for hundreds.
Would you book a night at a state-run hotel inside a military-administered park, or does the setup give you pause? Join the conversation and share your perspective with us on Instagram and Facebook at @thetulumtimes.