Cozumel, Mexico, has lengthy been thought of one of many world’s hottest cruise ports and a favourite vacation spot for cruise passengers from all over the world.
In January 2023, Cozumel lived as much as its fame, welcoming over 400,000 cruise passengers and 106 cruise ships to its shores.
These spectacular figures symbolize a major enhance of 185% over the identical interval in 2022, signaling the restoration from the pandemic each for the cruise port and the cruise business.
For the cruise business, these numbers are a trigger for celebration. After the pandemic hit in 2020, it skilled a major downturn. However, not everyone seems to be pleased with the return of mass cruise ship tourism to Cozumel.
Cozumel’s Cruise Tourism Fully Recovered
The Covid-19 pandemic triggered unprecedented disruption to the cruise business, resulting in a pointy decline in passenger numbers, vital monetary losses, and a halt in cruise operations worldwide.
However, Cozumel has managed to bounce again remarkably properly up to now 18 months, and the variety of passengers it has welcomed in January 2023 is proof of this.
While the variety of passengers continues to be beneath those registered in 2019 and 2020, the figures are nonetheless thought of spectacular. They present a major restoration from the pandemic for the cruise port and the cruise business.
In January 2019, Cozumel welcomed 485,136 passengers, and in 2020, the port welcomed 476,633 cruise visitors in the course of the first month of the yr.
In the primary month of this yr, 106 cruise ships visited Cozumel, bringing 408,633 visitors to the island to benefit from the beautiful seashores and resorts comparable to Mr. Sancho’s Beach Club.
This is a superb signal that tourism in Cozumel as a cruise vacation spot, and the cruise business as an entire, have now absolutely recovered.
The undeniable fact that the numbers are so near pre-pandemic ranges seen in 2019 and 2020 is a trigger for celebration. It implies that tourism is again to the degrees that it loved earlier than the pandemic hit.
Cozumel is the World’s Busiest Cruise Port of Call
Cozumel has established itself because the world’s busiest cruise port of name, with extra cruise ships and cruise passengers arriving on the island than some other cruise vacation spot worldwide.
The solely ports that exceed the numbers seen in Cozumel are the homeports in Florida, PortMiami, Port Canaveral, and Port Everglades. This yr, Cozumel expects to welcome 1,152 cruise ships with 3,127,250 passengers, a 25.75% enhance over 2022. This spectacular determine is a testomony to the recognition of Cozumel as a vacation spot for cruise passengers.
However, it appears unlikely that Cozumel will beat pre-pandemic numbers within the coming years.
Despite the unbelievable enhance in cruise tourism in Cozumel, the building of a fourth pier stays in limbo because of ongoing protests from environmental teams and native residents. Without this, the expansion of cruise tourism in Cozumel is unlikely to proceed.
Cozumel has three current cruise piers. Adding a fourth pier would enable the port to deal with considerably extra ships and enhance its capability to welcome extra cruise passengers. However, environmentalists are involved that the fourth pier’s building will hurt the atmosphere, together with the destruction of corals and an necessary coral rejuvenation mission in Cozumel.
Cozumel’s dependence on the cruise business has been evident, and the pandemic has hit the island and native companies onerous. Yet, protests and pending court docket circumstances reveal rising concern amongst environmental teams and locals in regards to the influence of the cruise business on the atmosphere and the local people.
While the financial contribution that the cruise business brings to Cozumel has positively impacted the native inhabitants, it appears that evidently worth, amount, and high quality don’t all the time go hand-in-hand.