• AIRPORTS: Despite a record year in cruise ship visitors, the number of air passengers arriving at the Mexican island of Cozumel went down in 2019 with experts citing the massive bloom of sargassum seaweed inundating beaches across the Caribbean.
• NUMBERS: Mostly attributed to a drop in international arrivals rather than the domestic market, air passengers arriving at the Cozumel airport fell from 579,000 for the first 11 months of 2018 to 546,000 for the same period of 2019, according to official airport data.
• ECOTOURISM: “More than the beach or the fun of the night, Cozumel is an ecological, ecotourism destination, so the sargassum it him very hard”, said Juan Antonio José, an independent aviation analyst, when asked about what could be behind the drop in air passenger traffic.
• SARGASSUM: A problem throughout the Caribbean, sargassum seaweed mainly hit Cozumel’s west side between April and August. Given an uptick in homicides and thefts across the state of Quintana Roo, analysts believe tourists perception of insecurity could also be playing a role.
