Counting on Visitors

According to statistical data compiled and published by the Bank of Mexico, over 85 million people visited Mexico during 2009.

Of the 85 million visitors, 20.9 million—24.5%—were classed as ‘international receptive tourists’; these are visitors who arrive in Mexico and stay beyond the ‘frontier zone’: i.e. beyond the check-points situated about 20km inland from the country’s land and sea borders.  Of these, 9.6 million arrived via an internal airport, and 1.9 million arrived by land.  The other 9.4 million receptive tourists are sub-classed as ‘frontier tourists’—people who cross the border by car or as pedestrians and travel beyond the frontier zone.

5.5 million visitors—6.5% of the 85 million—arrived in Mexico as cruise ship passengers.

By far the largest group of international visitors to Mexico are classed in the stats as ‘frontier excursionists’—people who cross the border by road or on foot, but who don’t travel beyond the ‘frontier zone’.  Nearly 59 million visitors entered Mexico on short excursions last year: 13 million by foot, and 46 million by car.  They make up nearly 70% of the total.

Last year’s numbers also reveal some interesting anecdotes related to the effects of visitor numbers at the time of the A-H1NI outbreak.

On average, just over 1 million visitors arrived each month by airplane during the first four months of the year. In May, at the height of the A-H1N1 outbreak, this number collapsed to 375,000.  Arrival of visitors by air climbed steadily from June, with arrivals (in thousands) of 690, 795 in July, 500 in September, 644 in October, 800 in November. By December, traditionally one of the country’s busiest travel months, air arrivals just managed to reach 925,000—a sterling improvement, but still insufficient to reach the first-quarter monthly averages.  The decline is, quite probably, also a reflection of the general down-turn in air world-wide air travel.

Cruise passenger numbers collapsed more steeply than air passenger numbers last summer.  Over 600,000 cruise passengers arrived at Mexican ports each month between January and April.  In May, the number was just 28,000.  By October 2009, cruise passenger visitors were returning to the average levels seen during the first four months of year, but even December’s tally, with 575,000 cruise passenger arrivals, could not return performance to early-year levels.

In stark contrast, the number of people crossing the border using their vehicles and on foot, classed as frontier excursionists, were hardly affected.  An average of 4.87 million excursionists arrived in Mexico by car and by foot in each of the first four months of 2009.  In May, this number was virtually unchanged, and in the months following—June through December—the monthly average rose, to reach nearly 5 million people crossing into Mexico as excursionists.

The statistics demonstrate that while many people abandoned air travel during the A-H1N1 affair, visitors were quite prepared to continue traveling into Mexico using their cars or by foot across land borders.  The data also suggest that people may have been more concerned about contracting the flu on an enclosed airship than by visiting Mexico, per se.

Land travel and, in particular, high-speed train travel could hold a significant future potential for transportation into and across Mexico.  Mexico’s train network was mothballed about three decades ago in favor of road development, so the current rail network is nowhere near the standard required to provide a modern, fast and efficient passenger train service.  However, the potential of a high-speed rail link connecting Mexico north-to-south, with smaller rail networks connecting a ‘spinal cord’ to the regions, could transform the way people travel across Mexico in future—especially for visitors from the United States and Canada, where over 85% of Mexico’s visitors emanate from.

See Also: Getting Around Mexico