NEW RECORD OF BRITISH TOURISTS VISITING MEXICO
LONDON, United Kingdom, 12th January 2017.- During 2016 more than 521,000 British tourists travelled to Mexico, which represents an increase of 9.3% regarding the previous year and keeps the United Kingdom as the third most important market for Mexico globally and the largest in Europe.
The increase in the volume of British visiting Mexico has been constant, given that in 2015 reached 10.4% in comparison with 2014, totalising 477,300 in 2015. The figure gets relevance when it is compared with the increase of worldwide tourism with an average of 5%, while Mexico´s represents almost the double.
Just in the first ten months of 2016, 28.2 million of international tourists arrived to our country – 9.3% more than the same period of 2015- which delivers an economic stream of USD $ 15.8 billion, (10% more than the same period of 2014).
As a result of this, once the final counting of international tourists travelling globally takes place, Mexico could close 2016 climbing a place in the list of attractive touristic countries, going from 9th to the 8th.
The national destinations that received the larger number of British visitors were Cancun/Riviera Maya, Mexico City and Puerto Vallarta, which attracted more than 98% of airborne visitors.
The average vacancy of British tourists was 13 nights and an average spending of USD $2,885 during each visit, including transportation. Also the interest of the British traveller has extended towards the investment in real estate and in services related to the tourism industry.
According to the Secretariat of Tourism, this sector has already a bigger size than the finance and mining sectors, having a net income of USD $19.6 billion in 2016, representing 8.7% of the GDP and keep increasing over the average rate of the national economy.
It is noteworthy to recall that on 7th November 2016, the Secretary of Tourism, Enrique de la Madrid, held a meeting with the Under Secretary of State for Sport, Tourism and Heritage of the UK, Tracey Crouch, in order to exchange points of view about the behaviour of the tourism industry in both nations and also participated in the World Travel Market, considered one of the most important tourism fairs worldwide, in which Mexico exhibited it’s broad and diverse tourism offer through its pavilion.
The working visit of the Secretary of Tourism had as main objective to attract a larger entry of British visitors to Mexico and consolidate the touristic activity which now represents the third currency income for Mexico.
In parallel, the Embassy of Mexico in the United Kingdom developed last year an active work on cultural and touristic promotion which maintains the interest of the British tourist for our country.
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