A Tulum airport weekend becomes a global case study at UN Tourism next week

Opemsa México released the official results of the Tulum 100 on Thursday, reporting 22,783 attendees and 200 million pesos in economic impact from the April race weekend at Tulum International Airport.

The company describes the event as the first fully professional race staged inside an active airport in Latin America, run in coordination with FAMEX, the Feria Aeroespacial México operated by the Mexican Air Force, and on infrastructure administered by Grupo Mundo Maya. The Tulum Times covered the race announcement in February.

Those numbers are about to travel. Opemsa will present the Tulum weekend as a global model at the fourth World Sports Tourism Congress, which UN Tourism will hold at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez in Mexico City from September 7 to 9, marking the first time the congress meets in Mexico. For a municipality that has spent two years arguing it can host more than beach tourism, the case being taken to that room is Tulum's.

A two-day format built to keep visitors overnight

The race was held on April 25 and 26, and Opemsa says the split across two days was a deliberate tactic rather than a scheduling accident. Stretching the program forced the overnight stay that a single afternoon of racing does not produce.

The company reports 22,783 people on the FBO platform at Tulum International Airport over that weekend, a figure it calls an official historical record for the format. It puts the economic impact at 200 million pesos injected directly into the region over the same two days.

Opemsa frames the choice of venue as a form of decentralization. Elite motorsport had never reached the heart of the Mundo Maya, and moving it there opens the sport to audiences that had no access to it, while pushing spending into communities that sit outside the usual circuit of Mexican racing venues.

2.8 million viewers watched across Latin America

The broadcast figures are the widest reach the company claims for the weekend.

Television coverage across Latin America drew 2.8 million unique viewers, according to Opemsa, with an average minute audience of 420,000 simultaneous followers. On digital platforms, the company reports a peak of 85,000 concurrent viewers during the climax of the race and the aerial display, with 1.5 million accumulated plays.

Opemsa also credits an agreement with Sectur that allowed the event to carry the Marca México country brand, which it says positioned Quintana Roo as a destination and turned the weekend into a tourism ambassador for the state.

Sport Marking kept the drills off federal concrete

Engineering is the part Opemsa leans on most, because it is what makes the format repeatable.

Running a professional track in synchrony with civil air traffic required a surface that could carry stock cars and then disappear. The company credits Sport Marking, an allied firm, with guaranteeing full protection of the federal hydraulic concrete from any perforation. Nothing was drilled, and the installation came off the apron at the end of the weekend.

That is the convergence Opemsa calls Motorsport plus aerospace, and the company presents it as a working case for dual-use infrastructure. Mexico's newer strategic works, the Tulum airport under Grupo Mundo Maya among them, can carry a second purpose without giving up the first.

Track Green on the ground

The event ran under Track Green, the company's institutional environmental protocol, which Opemsa says is aligned with the standards of OMDAI FIA.

On the ground, that meant circular-economy practices, waste management, and impact-mitigation measures applied throughout the venue. The company states the intention plainly. Economic development and sports tourism in a region of this ecological value must proceed alongside environmental protection rather than at its expense.

Honor y Motor, and an alliance with the Juventudes del CCE

Alongside the environmental protocol, Opemsa built a civic layer into the program.

Under the banner "Honor y Motor," the event recognized the civic and operational work of the armed forces before thousands of spectators, with the Mexican Air Force providing the aerial component. The company also joined the Di lo bueno por México initiative through a strategic alliance with the Juventudes del CCE, the youth arm of the Consejo Coordinador Empresarial.

Opemsa itself carries the Hecho en México seal issued by the Secretaría de Economía, and describes its work as the commercial, technical, and operational integration of temporary infrastructure for motorsport across Latin America.

The Tulum 100 case goes to the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez

Jaime Velázquez R., chief executive of Opemsa México, will take the stage as an invited panelist at the congress between September 7 and 9.

His subject is destination branding. In front of world leaders and decision-makers, the presentation will argue that a Mexican dual-use initiative opens new routes for economic development and that national infrastructure can be positioned as a profitable, innovative, and safe ecosystem for attracting foreign investment in sustainable sports tourism.

Opemsa's reading of April is that the weekend captured attention at the highest international levels, and that Mexico now has a case to argue rather than an intention to announce.

Santa Lucía is the next stop in 2027

The alliance moves inland from here. Opemsa says the next major FAMEX event will be held at the Santa Lucía military air base in the State of Mexico in 2027.

The sporting card and the rest of the details are being held for a later press conference. What the company has committed to is continuing the formula Tulum tested first: an airport perimeter turned into a venue, then handed back intact.

Should Tulum International Airport host the Tulum 100 again, or has the airport apron done its part? Join the conversation and share your perspective with us on Instagram and Facebook at @thetulumtimes.