Caribbean’s Hurricane Irma loss is Mexico’s gain
Mexico is seeing a tourism bump at the expense of hurricane ravaged areas of the Caribbean.
According to airline data, many travelers are rebooking their vacations in Mexico, as airlines have cut capacity to affected destinations like Puerto Rico, St. Maarten and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
US and international airlines have cut about 1.2 million seats to Caribbean destinations from October 2017 through March 2018, while an extra 600,000 have been added to Mexican vacation hotspots including Puerto Vallarta, San Jose del Cabo and Cancun.
More seats have been added to other unaffected Caribbean islands including Aruba and Jamaica.
"Customers want to travel someplace warm with a beach and airlines want to book them to places that have hotel rooms available," said Mark Drusch, CEO of aviation consultancy ICF.
The uptick in seat capacity to Mexico comes even as the U.S. State Department updated travel warnings over the rising threat of gang-related violent crime.
Seat capacity to Puerto Rico tanked the most, with the island losing more than 454,000 airline seats for the winter and spring season.
ICF said there has not been a marked increase in capacity to major US winter destinations like Las Vegas or Denver.
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Editor for TravelMole North America and Asia pacific regions. Ray is a highly experienced (15+ years) skilled journalist and editor predominantly in travel, hospitality and lifestyle working with a huge number of major market-leading brands. He has also cover in-depth news, interviews and features in general business, finance, tech and geopolitical issues for a select few major news outlets and publishers.
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