Mexico City /
The Hotel Association of Mexico City (AHCM) will ask the Ministry of Tourism (Sectur) establish a whole promotion and product creation tactics to take advantage of the celebration of Soccer World Cup in Mexico in 2026 and that there is greater benefit for the host cities.
“What we want is to work on the development of packages around this sporting event. Many people are going to come to watch the games, but what is going to happen afterward? What we want is for tourists to know the activities they can do after going to the stadiums, such as that there is a football museum or enjoy other aspects of the stadium. Aztec Stadium“said the group’s executive director, Alberto Albarrán, in an interview.
They do this to capture the greatest possibility of economic spillover from the event, since according to estimates by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the hotels They earn up to three times more in a World Cup month than a normal month in the last quarter of a year.
An example of that was the Qatar World Cupwhere the hotels they got a spill of 510 million dollarswhen in a normal month it is 161 million.
“We must find a promotion strategy so that the traveler who comes to this sporting event stays more days to enjoy Xochimilco, go visit Chapultepec or go to other states in the country to continue their visit. You have to develop products around the World Cup and attract the people who are going to come, you have to generate expectations for them,” he indicated.
He even considered that there will be other travelers who will not have time to go to many places and will only see the games, “but with an appropriate promotion strategy they will later return to visit Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey, even places close to these capitals. ”.
“People are going to come to one or two games, but you have to generate their interest so that later they say ‘I want to come back!’, because I want to see such a place, I didn’t have time to go to Xochimilco or another place,” commented the union leader. .
Albarrán pointed out that it is a great opportunity, because even though there will be soccer games in the United States and Canada, many countrymen will return to Mexico and they should be captured as travelers.
Foreign visitors
In August, the entry of foreign tourists The country showed a recovery compared to the previous month, since 3 million 445 thousand entered, 6.6 percent more compared to the same period last year, indicated the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi). In July there was only an advance of 0.7 percent.
The increase reported in the eighth month of the year is the highest in the last semester, since March had registered an increase of 10.6 percent.
Regarding the total expenditure of foreign travelers in the country (tourists and excursionists) during last August was 2 thousand 177 million dollars2.8 percent higher than what was registered in the same period of 2023.
Based on the institute’s reports, it was specified that in the sixth month of the year the increase in the economic benefit was 3 percent.
Last week the federal government revealed that in the current six-year term the Tourism Promotion Council of Mexico (CPTM) will not return, therefore the work to disseminate the sector will be carried out in association with the states and the private initiative.
“We are in a new model and a new model not in the tourismbut in Mexico and in the world, Mexican humanism. This humanism in the tourism sector This is it, working together,” said Sectur.
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