How many tourists came to Cozumel in 2023?

[El Graduado]

Ever wonder just how many tourists visit Cozumel every year? The official numbers for 2023 were just released.

3,863,260 people arrived by passenger ferry (This number includes passengers who made two or more trips during 2023)

356,454 people came on the car ferry

4,089,054 tourists arrived on cruise ships (not counting the crewmembers that came ashore)

203,999 came on domestic flights

473,504 came on international flights

For a total of:

8,308,768 arrivals by water
677,503 arrivals by air
8,986,271 grand total of tourists arriving on Cozumel in 2023

This means there were 100 times more tourists than the entire resident population of Cozumel last year.
One-hundred tourists for every resident!

 

[riceowls]

I am not sure about ferry numbers - most passengers are either local going from mainland work or vice versa. Why "two-or-more-trips"? We, for instance, flew to CUN, dove in Cenotes on the first day, and then took the ferry to Cozumel from where we flew home. So we did not count?

 

[Nitrogenius]

The only statistics you can trust are those you falsified yourself!

So here we go:
100 times more tourist than the entire population. When they take day trips (not uncommon especially for those coming from a cruise ship) divide by 365 and already you have 3 to 4 locals over one tourist..
Sounds a lot less spectacular

 

[El Graduado]

I am not sure about ferry numbers - most passengers are either local going from mainland work or vice versa. Why "two-or-more-trips"? We, for instance, flew to CUN, dove in Cenotes on the first day, and then took the ferry to Cozumel from where we flew home. So we did not count?

Yes, you were counted as one of the tourists arriving by ferry. The count by ferry is the number of tickets sold from Playa del Carmen to Cozumel.

Not sure how you get that "most passengers are either local going from mainland work or vice versa." Just because they look Mexican to you doesn't mean they are not national tourists day-tripping from Playa, or like you, flew in to Cancun and then ferried to Cozumel. The mid-day ferries are pretty full to be "mostly workers commuting."

I included "two or more trips" in the explanation of the ferry numbers to account for the number of tickets sold to passengers who made more than one trip from Playa to Cozumel, which inflates the true number, just like the uncounted number of cruise ship crew members who disembarked on Cozumel skews the cruise ship numbers.

 

[gopbroek]

OK, 473K international passengers at the CZM airport works out to:

International departure tax 473K @ $55 each = $26M USD

Inbound Tourism Tax (figure 75% Nonresident) 355K @ $40 = $14M USD

Outbound immigration (everyone pays this one) 473K @ = $4.7M USD

So basically, the direct passenger taxes run near $45M USD a year in addition to the normal landing and airport fees, charged to the airline, for the airport. And look at the state-of-the-art facility at CZM this finances.

This is in addition to the domestic passenger facility charges

 

[profmason]

Thanks for posting this! It is really interesting to see how the cruise ship numbers have picked up since the pandemic.

4 million cruise ship tourists equates to 11,000 per day. This seems like it is double what it was a few years ago. (I always had on the brain that there were about 5000 / day.) I would have no problem believing that international and puerta maya get 8000 + per day and puerta langosta gets another 3000. With 12 new ships coming on line this year and predicted growth rate of 5-6%, there will only be more.

Interesting to note there were about 20million total cruisers in 2023, so about in 1 in 5 cruisers went to cozumel.

While I think the cruisers do contribute substantially to the island economy, my sense is that contribution is pretty unbalanced, with the money going to a small segment of the population and many of the cruise oriented businesses owned off shore. I would like to think that the divers who come and stay for week in town contribute more to local businesses. I bet the op knows way more about this then I do.

 

[El Graduado]

100 times more tourist than the entire population. When they take day trips (not uncommon especially for those coming from a cruise ship) divide by 365 and already you have 3 to 4 locals over one tourist..
Sounds a lot less spectacular

We have 8,986,271 tourists arriving on Cozumel during the year of 2023. That includes people who made day trips, two day trips, whatever. At last count, we had just under 90,000 residents.

To me, that says that there were ten times the number of tourists in relationship to island residents who spent time on Cozumel this past year.

That averages out to about 24,619 tourists a day, meaning on any given day, more than one-quarter of the people on the island are tourists.

 

[El Graduado]

So basically, the direct passenger taxes run near $45M USD a year in addition to the normal landing and airport fees, charged to the airline, for the airport. And look at the state-of-the-art facility at CZM this finances.

This is in addition to the domestic passenger facility charges

This money collected DOES NOT finance the Cozumel airport. All that cash goes straight to the Mexican Federal Government. Some of trickles back to Cozumel, but the vast majority of the cash goes for projects and maintenance of other, less productive airports and such. The Cozumel airport is managed by ASUR, a private company. The Mexican Army is in charge of the airport security now, although they subcontract much of the security jobs.

This system of collecting locally, remitting to the Federal Government, and then waiting for them to send you back a small fraction of it works with almost all taxes and fees collected in Cozumel. For example, the fee divers pay to use Cozumel's underwater park (as well as other Federal Parks in Mexico) is collected and sent to the Feds. The Feds then use the money to spread out between to all the country's parks and reserves to cover their operations. The amount that comes back to Cozumel is minimal.

 

[Saboteur]

Seems far larger than Grand Cayman. Shouldn’t there be enough cash sloshing around to make the tap water drinkable.?

 

[Johnoly]

That's alot of beer & tacos !!