Mexico Tourism Indicators Up for the First Seven Months of 2008

In the first seven months of the year, Mexico received $8.475 million dollars in foreign currency, which signified a 6.3 percent increase compared to the same period in 2007. Almost 14 million tourists entered the country, an increase of 5.2 percent compared to the same period last year.

As of July 2008, the country registered a total of 2.234 million workers in the tourism industry, which represents a 2.3 percent higher rate than the one registered in the same month in 2007.

During the first seven months of the year, there was an influx of $8.475 million dollars from the spending of foreign tourists, which signified a 6.3 percent increase compared to the same period in 2007, informed Rodolfo Elizondo Torres, Secretary of Tourism of Mexico (SECTUR).

According to the most recent data from the Bank of Mexico’s International Visitor Count, Secretary Elizondo said, in the January-July 2008 period, the country received 13.620 million tourists, a quantity that represented a 5.2 percent increase compared to the same period in 2007.

Likewise, the head of SECTUR said that the average spending of tourists who traveled further than the border –those who have the longest stays and greater spending- was of $788 dollars per trip, which represents an increase of 3.8 percent from 2007.