Mexico rises in the global ranking of average spending by international tourists

The Secretary of Tourism of the federal government, Miguel Torruco Marqués, headed two working meetings today, the first with members of the Morelia Tourism Development Council and the second with the Mexican Association of Women Entrepreneurs (Amexme), headed by Lucero Cabrales García Conde, who was shown the strategy developed by the Ministry of Tourism, through the VisitMexico digital platform, for the containment of the crisis generated by the Covid-19 pandemic.

During the meetings, the head of Sectur reported that in 2019, Mexico rose three positions in average tourist spending worldwide, going from 40, which was in 2018, to site 37, with $ 496 per capita, surpassing to countries like Bulgaria, the Russian Federation, Hungary and Belarus.

Given this progress, he added that, nevertheless, the great challenge for the tourism sector continues to be to significantly improve this position, since Mexico is still very far from the average spending of international tourists in the world, “so it will be essential a greater integration of the tourist product and the creation of new and interesting attractions, in order to respond to the new needs of an increasingly informed and demanding tourist, who now also demands the application of health security protocols in the destinations to be visited, after the appearance of the Covid-19, ”he said.

He specified that last year our country received the visit of 45 million tourists, who left an economic spill of 24 thousand 563 million dollars, with a growth in both indicators of nine percent, with respect to what was registered in 2018, which It placed Mexico in seventh position in the global ranking of international tourist arrivals and in sixteenth in terms of foreign exchange earnings.

However, he recalled that the objective of the current government, headed by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, is to increase the economic spillover and the per capita spending of visitors, because the tourism potential of a country is not measured by the number of tourists received , but for the amount of foreign currency captured.

Secretary Torruco Marqués highlighted that in the international Top Ten of average spending, the first place is occupied by Australia, with four thousand 855.5 dollars, followed by the United States, with two thousand 702.8 dollars; Macao (China), with 2,121; India, thousand 719; Thailand, one thousand 520.7; Switzerland, thousand 459.7; Japan, one thousand 431; United Kingdom, thousand 375; Singapore, thousand 292; and the United Arab Emirates, with $ 1,277.6.

For its part, the Secretary of Tourism of Michoacán, Claudia Chávez López, expressed that with the current health emergency the tourism sector of the entity is having difficult times, but it is not the first time that they face a complex situation, so they have always come out go ahead and in this crisis will not be the exception.

He argued that they are a destination that bases much of its economy on tourism, an industry that is essential for the entity, including its capital Morelia, so they join the strategy designed by the Federal Tourism Secretariat to face the pandemic that It has affected this sector so much worldwide.

In turn, Lucero Cabrales, president of the National Association of Women Entrepreneurs, said that since the crisis began they have been under a lot of pressure in their small and medium-sized companies, struggling not to fire any employee and to maintain their sources of work “because They are important for our families, because women go out to work for the family, sometimes as number one, sometimes accompanied, with a partner, with a husband, with family and often alone.

She expressed her confidence that they will succeed by joining the strategy that was shown to them by the VisitMexico team and uploading their companies, mainly travel agencies, to this digital platform. This was one of the agreements that were made during the work meeting, since they will receive the necessary support so that their businesses go digital and thus have the possibility of marketing products and services through the internet.