What are the main economic activities in Cancun?

Tourism is Cancun's main economic activity, making it the leader in Latin America. Tourism in Cancun generates a Gross Domestic Product as a state of more than 12 billion300 million dollars, of which 88% comes from the tertiary sector. For several years, Quintana Roo has been one of the states that have grown the most.

Quintana Roo's economic activities are represented in 80% by the tourism sector. From an economic point of view, Quintana Roo is in fifth place nationally. The natural treasure of its territory includes paradisiacal coastlines, reefs, beaches, lakes, lagoons, archeological zones, and 3 million hectares of jungle, making it the state with the largest extension of the jungle in the country. Quintana Roo's tertiary activities, including commerce and hotels, contributed 85% of the state's GDP. This high-income contribution of the state based on the tourism sector presents a high vulnerability to macroeconomic crises, or health risks, however, it is the entity with the best performance in the sector.

Quintana Roo is the state most visited by foreigners. According to data from the National Institute of Migration, the state has a flow of foreign visitors one hundred and twenty times higher than the national average. Cancun's International Airport is the second most important in Mexico. It receives more than 8 million passengers per year. With connections and direct flights to most of the capitals of Central and South American countries and a large number of cities in the United States and Canada.

Among the percentage of visitors in the state of Quintana Roo, Cancun receives 43% of the total, second only to Riviera Maya with 44%. Cancun is also located near numerous Mayan ruins such as Chichen-Itza, Tulum, among many others. It is worth remembering that a couple of years ago the Federal Attorney's Office for Environmental Protection had announced that the capacity of Cancun's beach area had exceeded its capacity and was endangering the balance and the Urban Development Plan, and recommended the demolition of the hotel rooms. Part of this increase is due to the opening of new flights to Cancun International Airport, among other actions that benefit the main economic activity of the state.

In terms of average tourism expenditures, Cancun contributed US$1,081 per visitor. In addition to the tourists who arrived by cruise ship, whose average expenditure was 82 dollars for the same period. It is necessary to have more indicators to correctly assess the contribution of tourism to the economy of territory, however, they are extremely complex to define and quantify in the sector, due to the particularities of tourism activity: seasonality, the difficulty to quantify the flows, the various services, and goods, the resident population, and visitors, the linkage with other sectors.

Industry

In economic importance, the construction industry is the most relevant in the industrial sector of the Population Center. Workers are organized by the private sector in the National Chamber of Industry and Transformation, and by the social sector in the Confederation of Workers of Mexico and the Revolutionary Confederation of Workers and Peasants, and the National Union of Transporters of Change, all of which have operating facilities and official representation in the city of Cancun.

The manufacturing industry represents a little less than 4% of the state's GDP and is the second most important in this sector. In contrast to the national evolution of more than 20%, the participation of the manufacturing industry in the state's GDP has been decreasing in recent years. It is a very incipient activity, with micro-establishments, generally family-owned. The manufacturing industry is related to food products, beverages, and tobacco, wood, and paper products as well as products for clothing manufacturing. One place of reference for the industrial sector is the Logistics Park, located on Luis Donaldo Colosio Boulevard. The largest warehousing facilities in the area are located on this road.

Agriculture

According to the characteristics of the soil of the state, there is a little surface for agriculture, however, this activity has been increasing in the last years, standing out products such as corn, beans, sorghum, tomato, and fruit trees like chicozapote, orange, papaya, sour lemon, mango, pineapple, and avocado, which are products for self-consumption. Some crops such as rice, sugar cane, and jalapeño peppers were also grown. Benito Juárez (where Cancun is located) occupies the sixth position of production units with agricultural surface and its surface per municipality according to water availability.

Agriculture in the Municipality of Benito Juárez is only oriented to the basic crop of grain corn, due to the soil conditions, since the surface presents adverse conditions for this activity, with stony soils of little depth and fast drainage in which mechanization is difficult. Corn production in the municipality is focused on satisfying the demand of local families, since it is difficult to market the products outside of the area, in addition to the poor soil conditions for agricultural activity, which is affected by the lack of irrigation infrastructure and the absence of productive organization, Although the demand for agricultural products has increased, current agricultural work is incapable of satisfying the municipality's growing demand.

Livestock

The main production of livestock in the municipality, the most prevalent one is swine, considering that pastures are not required for their care. It should be noted that the municipal territory has an important percentage for this activity to be carried out. The limitation faced by livestock farmers is the lack of modern technologies or financial and technical assistance that would allow them to maintain and strengthen this activity. Swine production is the most important livestock group for the municipality of Benito Juárez since it presented a total production of 619 tons between live cattle and carcass meat, the value of this last production was 16 million pesos, placing Benito Juárez as the second municipality with the highest swine production in Quintana Roo.

Cattle is the second in importance in production within the state, occupying a third place at the state level. Regarding sheep production, the municipality of Benito Juárez is in second place in the state production of carcass meat. In general terms, livestock farming is carried out on a small scale, and only swine and poultry contribute on a smaller scale than what is demanded in the municipality; the rest of the production, as mentioned above, is focused on self-consumption.

Fishing

The fishing industry is the other primary sector of Quintana Roo with the greatest contribution to the state's GDP. Its geography, with 860 km of coastline and some 265 thousand hectares of estuaries, lagoons, and bays, allows the fishing of species such as lobster, conch, jack mackerel, mojarra, snapper, and sardine. These species and many more have an outlet in a highly touristified market that is eager to taste local products. It is estimated that between 4 and 5 thousand tons of marine animals are caught each year for consumption. On the negative side, this industry is still somewhat rudimentary, based on small boats and with few vessels with processors or freezers for catching fish that require this technology.