Many of the benefits Americans and Canadians in their Mexico retirement arise from the ongoing strength of the country’s tourism. For this reason, it’s good news for retirees and most other Mexico real estate buyers that early 2012 has shown promising growth over previous years.
This year’s tourism figure compares favorably with the same month in 2008, considered the best year in Mexico’s tourism industry to date. February of 2012 showed an increase of 8.3 percent compared with the second month of 2011.
The Ministry of Tourism reports that the number of visitors who arrived by air during February was 1,039, 863 – a figure 13.3 percent higher than in the same period in 2008.
Of all the visitors who arrived in Mexico in February 2012, 537,866 were from the U.S., which is an increase of 4.3 percent over the same month in 2011.
According to the Integrated System for Operation Migration, the number of Canadians was 247,618 visitors, a figure 5.8 percent higher than February last year. It’s worth noting that this number is disproportionately large compared to that of the U.S.; while Canada has only 10% the population of the U.S., the number of tourists is almost 50% of the larger country. (Similar trends can be seen in real estate purchases.)
Argentina, France and the UK reported increases of 23.8, 8.8 and 10.3 percent respectively, compared with February 2011.
The number of visitors from Brazil grew 127.6 percent, Spain 1.2 percent and Germany 8 percent against the same period 2011. In February, the number of visitors from Chile increased 19.7 percent, Colombia 25.5 percent and Japan 18.4 per percent.
The number of visitors from Russia, Sweden, China and Denmark rose 5.2, 50.9, 26.4 and 14.7 percent respectively.
Increasing tourism not only ensures a healthy sized expat population, but also brings investment into services like new stores, modern hospitals and golf courses, all of which increase the attractiveness of retirement in Mexico.
TOPMexicoRealEstate.com; Mexico’s Leading Network of Specialists for Finding and Purchasing Mexican Properties Safely