Tulum Hotels Head Into High Season Competing With 8,269 Vacation Rentals

Tulum hotels head into the winter high season alongside 8,269 active vacation rental listings, a figure equal to more than two-thirds of the destination's 11,993 hotel rooms, according to AirROI and state tourism data.

The two kinds of lodging now earn their year in the same few months. For hotels, that window opens with about 1,000 rooms out of operation and occupancy below last year's levels, so the competition for each winter guest carries more weight than in any recent season.

How hoteliers and rental hosts split that demand between December and March will shape payrolls, suppliers, and the tax base across the municipality.

A rental supply that keeps growing

AirROI, a short-term rental analytics firm, counted 8,269 active listings in Tulum in its report updated November 5, up 5% from a year earlier. Tulum is the largest of the 29 Quintana Roo markets the firm tracks.

The hotel inventory, by comparison, stands at 239 properties with 11,993 rooms, according to the Quintana Roo Tourism Secretariat, Sedetur.

Rental-side counts vary widely by method. Sedetur reported 3,554 active vacation rental properties in Tulum for the week of October 31 to November 6. AirDNA, which tracks Airbnb, Vrbo, and Booking.com, counted 11,258 active listings in July. Even the lowest figure is close to a third of the hotel room count.

Tulum hotels enter the season with fewer rooms open

Hotel occupancy averaged 63.7% from January to July 2026, down from 72.7% in the same period of 2025, according to Sedetur figures reported by El Imparcial. For the week ending November 6, Sedetur put hotel occupancy at 58.3%, with an average rate of about 2,400 pesos a night. Vacation rentals ran at 46% that week.

Some of the capacity is not coming to market at all. David Ortiz Mena, president of the Asociación de Hoteles de Tulum, told Uno TV in October that close to 1,000 rooms were closed because of lower demand, about 8% of the destination's hotel inventory.

He warned that the new travel pattern could lead some hotels to open only during the high season. The association has not said how many of those rooms are closed permanently and how many are waiting for winter.

January is the prize for both sides

The rental market shows how concentrated the year has become. AirROI's monthly data puts average revenue per Tulum listing at MX$60,429 in January, nearly 2.7 times the MX$22,457 of September. The average nightly rate climbed to MX$4,328 in January, from MX$2,728 in September.

Those peak weeks are the same ones hotels count on to recover from the low season. Rental listings range from studios to large villas, so their rates cannot be compared one-to-one with a hotel room, but both sell to the same pool of winter visitors.

Hosts are under pressure too. AirROI puts the average annual revenue per Tulum listing at MX$265,083, down 7.9% from a year earlier, even as the number of listings grew. More units are splitting a smaller pie.

Hoteliers want rules beyond taxes

The hotel industry's case has been consistent. Ortiz Mena, who also chairs the Consejo Hotelero del Caribe Mexicano, argued in November 2025 that the state had moved to collect taxes from rental platforms without regulating them, as reported by Ruptura 360. He proposed zoning and a cap on the number of nights a property can be rented, and contrasted the security protocols hotels follow, including measures against human trafficking, with the conditions in many rentals.

Some rules are already on the books. Quintana Roo's tourism regulations require platforms to display each property's registration number, along with emergency information and safety measures for guests, and the state lodging tax law imposes withholding obligations on digital platforms, Por Esto reported. Airbnb says it applies a 6% lodging tax to reservations in Quintana Roo.

Bernardo Cueto Riestra, president of the state tourism business group Asetur, has said governments are working on regulatory frameworks to create a level playing field between the two models.

Hilton, Marriott, and Wyndham already rent villas

The line between hotel and rental is also moving from the inside. Manuel Lozano Álvarez, president of the Asociación de Administradores de Rentas Vacacionales en Quintana Roo, has said that traditional hotels are expanding into villas and apartments and that chains such as Hilton, Marriott, and Wyndham already participate in the vacation rental business through digital platforms.

That shift points to a hybrid market in which the same brand can sell a hotel room and a private villa to the same traveler.

For Tulum's hotels, the first test arrives in the coming weeks. The share of those 1,000 closed rooms that reopen for December, and the occupancy Sedetur reports for the holiday weeks, will show whether the high season still lifts the hotel sector or now spreads its gains across a much larger supply of beds.

When you visit Tulum, do you book a hotel or a vacation rental, and what factors into your decision? Join the conversation and share your perspective with us on Instagram and Facebook at @thetulumtimes.