international tourist arrivals down 46%

The area of Mexico where I live relies heavily on tourists for its livelihood. Both Mexican and international tourists.

That is why headlines like "International tourist arrivals down 46% to just over 2 million in November" grab our attention. The headline accompanied a story in yesterday's Mexico News Daily that both air arrivals and border crossings into Mexico have decreased almost by half when compared with the same month the year before. What is worse, the amount tourists spent in Mexico decreased by an even higher percentage.

For a country that earns 26.6% of its revenue in 2019 from international tourism, that is not good news.

Tourism around Navidad Bay is only a small drop in the total number of tourists who visit Mexico each year. There are officials who track tourism numbers locally. But anyone who is currently in the Costalegre area knows that both Mexican and international tourism is down this year. Conversations with restaurant owners, waiters, and hotel proprietors will reveal what each of us can witness for ourselves. 

The faces who show up from the north each winter change. Some old-timers stop coming because of health, family obligations, divorces, changes in tastes. The usual list of life's circumstances that intrude into our routines.

But the biggest impediment this year is the coronavirus. A large group of people have simply decided that traveling to Mexico this winter is a risk too great to undertake.

I know the decision not to come has not been an easy one for a lot of people. They would prefer to be here in the sun rather than shivering in the cold. But they would not be comfortable in an environment where few masks are worn in public and where social-distancing is something of a cultural affront. It is difficult to enjoy Mexico's sybaritic life-style while constantly worrying if the person next to you is going to pass along the virus.

If, as we all hope, the vaccination program now underway in some parts of the world is successful, this tourist season may just be another of those blips that tourist-reliant areas face. After all, when tourism fell off drastically during the 2009 swine flu breakout, Mexican tourism recovered remarkably in the following year. (Though I have talked with some owners of tourist businesses who assert it took about five years for revenues to recover to their 2008 levels.)

For the sake of those who make a living off of tourist pesos and dollars, I hope, in a year's time, the headline in the Mexico News Daily will be: "International tourist arrivals up 89% in November."

We shall see. This virus has taken some interesting turns during 2020. It is just about time its evolutionary wiles delivered us a bit of good news.