Playa Del Carmen, Mexico (PressExposure) January 05, 2011 -- Cancun real estate is set to benefit from the fact that in 2010, the area had an excellent year in attracting international tourism and along with the Riviera Maya (the stretch heading about 2 hours south of Cancun past Playa del Carmen to Tulum) became the top international tourism destination in the Caribbean, beating the Dominican Republic, its main competitor in the region, by nearly 2.2 million tourists.
The news is especially good for the Cancun condo industry, which offers buyers a significant benefit in income through vacation rentals. A residents, however, also benefit from the increases in investment into infrastructure and services which growing tourism brings.
According to statistics from January to September, Cancun and Riviera Maya as a whole received 4.7 million tourists in its more than 67 thousand hotel rooms. The Director General of the Cancun Convention & Visitors Bureau (CVB), Jesus Almaguer Salazar, said that to close this year there are high expectations for this winter holiday season and next year there is optimism to strengthen the image of the destination worldwide; the area is receiving a 30 per cent increase in its promotional budget, or an increas of 200 million pesos (approx 85 million USD).
In that sense, Almaguer expects that 2011 will be a good year. The main obstacle is to imporove the perception of danger from drug related crime in Mexico as a country, especially for tourist destinations. While the reality is that most tourist destinations are fairly comfortably away from these clashes, that mostly occur in pockets on the U.S. border, media presentations have given the perception that the problem is much more widespread. The challange will be to counteract this perception.
With a supply of 66 thousand hotel rooms (only slightly less), the Dominican Republic brought in 2.7 million visitors during 2010; Cuba received 1.9 million visitors in 56 thousand rooms, The Bahamas, one million tourists to its 15 thousand hotel rooms and Jamaica on 0.9 million visitors to its 26 thousand rooms.
On the whole, Mexico condos hold a distinct advantage over other nearby areas of bringing more tourism, and more investment for a better developed modern lifestyle. In terms of health care and international shopping options, Mexico, and especially locations like Cancun, far excede the Caribbean, Central America and even much of South America.
The 2.2 million visitors associated with the Cancun Climate Change Summit greatly helped boost the numbers, but even without these, the area still outstripped the second most successful are by a wide margin.
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