Luxury Resort Developments Underway in Mexico’s Mazatlan

A half-dozen new developments, including three mega-resorts, are on tap for sites in and around Mazatlan, Mexico. Antonio Ibarra, secretary of tourism for the state of Sinaloa, described the projects as “our biggest buildup in tourism capacity in 30 years.”

The projects include Diamond Beach, a $1.2 billion development being built along two miles of beach in the Nuevo Mazatlan area north of the city. On the drawing board south of Mazatlan is Costa Palma, a project “the size of a whole city” being negotiated with investors from New Zealand, Ibarra said.

Also south of Mazatlan, further down the coast near Las Cabras, will be a 6,200-acre resort. The project will be the first development in Sinaloa to be backed by Fonatur, the government bureau responsible for tourism promotion.

Mr. Ibarra said these and other projects are expected to spark a doubling of hotel inventory in the Mazatlan area over the next five years. Mazatlan currently has 9,000 rooms.

In addition to the projects outside town, Ibarra said construction was scheduled to start in 2008 on a 1,200-room RIU resort in Mazatlan’s El Cerritos area. Also, he said talks were in progress for a Quinta Real development expected to offer 80 to 100 units in a complex of several buildings in the city’s downtown Historic District.

Another new hotel in the district will offer 34 rooms in a restored building across the lane from the Angela Peralta Theater. The hotel, not yet named, is scheduled to open in December 2007.