Tulum hotels say the pandemic was easier on their finances than this summer

Tulum hotel occupancy has been too low to cover payroll since June, and the head of the local hotel association says the sector's finances are now worse than during the COVID-19 pandemic.

David Ortiz Mena, president of the Consejo Hotelero del Caribe Mexicano and of the Asociación de Hoteles de Tulum, said the comparison is not rhetorical. "In financial terms, we are worse off than during the pandemic," he said, describing months in which rooms have not produced enough revenue to meet payroll, let alone anything after it.

The claim is about arithmetic more than about visitor counts. In 2020 the guests disappeared, and most of the spending disappeared with them. Hotels shut down operations, cut costs to a minimum, and some of them received relief from their banks to get through the year. This time the rooms are empty, and every bill still arrives, with the price of clearing sargassum off the sand added at the end of it.

Costs stayed while the visitors left

Payroll, utilities, maintenance and supplies do not scale down with occupancy. A property with fifteen guests still pays for security, electricity, and a front desk at a rate close to that of a full one.

Sargassum is the line that did not exist in the pandemic ledger. Speaking to reporters earlier this month, Ortiz Mena said removal can reach 500,000 pesos a week at some properties, an expense that falls hardest on the coastal hotels with the most beach to clear and the least occupancy to pay for it.

That math is already changing how some properties operate. Owners along the coast have been weighing whether to close during the sargassum months and reopen when the water clears, a possibility The Tulum Times reported earlier this month. Ortiz Mena has also asked commercial and development banks to restructure tourism credits so hotels can keep their staff on the books.

Situr puts Tulum hotel occupancy at 56.4 percent; hoteliers put the coast at 15 percent

The official figures and the ones the industry quotes do not describe the same destination.

The weekly report from the Sistema de Información Turística de Quintana Roo placed Tulum at 56.4 percent for the week of August 15 to 21, marginally above the state average of 56.1 percent, in a week when Quintana Roo received 377,867 visitors. Bernardo Cueto Riestra, the state tourism secretary, told reporters in mid-August that Tulum was running at roughly 15 percent, the lowest in its history. Regional outlets later clarified that the 15 percent corresponds to the minimum levels recorded in coastal-zone hotels, not to the destination as a whole.

Over a longer window, the direction is less disputed. Situr figures reported by Clic Noticias put Tulum's average occupancy between January and May of this year at 69.88 percent, against 76.86 percent across the same five months of 2025. That is a drop of 6.98 percentage points in a period when the state average fell 1.42.

The exchange rate and the airline seats that went missing

Ortiz Mena has been careful not to hand the whole problem to the seaweed.

He named the exchange rate and the reduction in available airline seats, which he attributed to higher fuel costs, as forces acting on the same balance sheet. In remarks reported by Novedades Quintana Roo earlier in August, he tied part of the lost air capacity to the bankruptcy of a United States carrier, which he estimated removed close to 9 percent of the seats available for the season.

His expectation is that occupancy stays weak through the first half of October.

Highway 307, and the tow truck at the end of it

The association's second complaint has nothing to do with the beach.

Ortiz Mena questioned the condition of Highway 307, the road most visitors use to reach Tulum, citing problems with speed control, an absence of bus stops and pedestrian crossings, and repair work that is not always properly signposted. He added the risk of a visitor's vehicle being towed, an outcome that can become a significant expense once the fine and the haulage charge are combined.

These are experience problems rather than arrival problems. They reach the visitor after the booking has already been paid.

A taxi ride that costs more than the cenote

Getting around town is the third item on the list.

The association president said taxis in Tulum still operate without an officially recognized fare table, allowing some drivers to set prices at their discretion. The public record supports him. No municipal tariff is in force in Tulum, there are no meters, and the Tiburones del Caribe union told Quintana Roo Hoy in July that it had ordered printed fare boards of its own. Under Plan Tulum Renace, the federal infrastructure and transport ministry is meant to standardize taxi fares in the municipality, in collaboration with Imoveqroo. No revised tariff has been published since.

The gap directly affects the workaround hotels are using this summer. When the beach is covered, properties send guests inland to cenotes and other attractions. Ortiz Mena said that even when a site offers free entry to hotel guests, the taxi fare can come out higher than the activity itself.

The alternative to the sargassum, in other words, carries a price the hotel does not control.

The second half of October is the date the sector is watching

Hotels expect demand to start recovering in the second half of October, with better occupancy and stronger spending through November and December. The association's winter projections have been more optimistic than this year's numbers, on the condition that the destination improves what visitors find when they get here.

That's the condition Ortiz Mena keeps landing in. Sargassum, mobility, taxi fares, and road conditions are the four items on his list, and the question he poses to himself is whether Tulum will be ready to offer a better experience if demand does come back.

None of the four has a date attached. The second half of October does.

If bookings return in October, will Tulum be ready to give visitors a better experience than it did this summer? Join the conversation and share your perspective with us on Instagram and Facebook at @thetulumtimes.