Tourism finally surpasses 2019 levels in Mexico, #Tourism #finally #surpasses #levels #Mexico Welcome to OLASMEDIA TV NEWSThis is what we have for you today:
MEXICO CITY (AP) — International tourism in Mexico has finally surpassed pre-pandemic levels, after 10.26 million visitors came to the country in the first half of 2022, Mexico’s Tourism Department reported Friday.
International arrivals from January to June 2022 were 1.5% higher than the 10.11 million tourists who arrived in Mexico in the first half of 2019.
Mexico’s strongest show was with American tourists. The number of Americans arriving by air in the first six months of the year was 6.66 million; that is 19.1% higher than in the same period of 2019.
It’s not clear whether the war in Ukraine played a role in convincing some Americans to vacation closer to home.
The challenge facing Mexico’s most popular tourist destinations – the beaches of the Caribbean coast – is no longer COVID, against whose spread Mexico has never imposed no-fly zones, tests or mask requirements. Rather, it is the masses of stinky sargassum seaweeds that have accumulated at some points along the coast.
Sargassum wasn’t much of a problem on Mexico’s Caribbean coast before it started drifting to shore in 2014 and 2015. 2022 looks likely to be a particularly bad year.
As a whole, Mexico’s economy grew 1% in the second quarter, the National Bureau of Statistics said Friday.
Economic growth for the first half of 2022 is now at 1.9%, after growing 0.9% in the first three months of the year.
The economy recovered 5% in 2021 after a sharp decline during the coronavirus pandemic.
But growth is expected to slow due to high interest rates and an economic downturn in the United States, by far Mexico’s largest trading partner.