Cozumel had a better than expected Holiday season with over 53% of the rooms in the island's largest hotels being occupied on some days in December, according to figures from the Quintana Roo state tourism board.
Isela Valenzuela, manager of the Cozumel Hotel Association which represents the largest hotels in Cozumel, said, this week, that all 22 of the association's member hotels are now open for business.
American Airlines currently have a total of over 20 flights per week to the island, from Miami, Dallas, Chicago and Charlotte. United Airlines have a total of 6 flights per week, from Houston, Chicago and Denver. And there are also regular flights with Sun Country from Minneapolis, Air Canada from Montreal and Volaris from Mexico City.
At This Is Cozumel Tours we also saw a marked increase in reservations for tours, car rentals and airport transfers, as visitors looked for safe transport and activities to do while on the island.
Strict new health measures are being enforced at hotels and within the island tourism industry generally, including all staff receiving special training; staff wearing face masks and/or visors; staff and visitor temperature checks; visitors wearing face masks in areas of closer contact (but not when relaxing at a safe social distance or eating/drinking, etc); constant disinfection of areas; sanitizing gel dispensers and social distancing of visitors.
Cozumel was one of the first destinations in the world to receive the new "Safe Travels" safety and hygiene stamp from the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC), last year. The stamp is awarded to destinations and tourism businesses that are implementing new protocols to prevent the spread of COVID, such as reduced capacities, extra cleaning, the use of face coverings and minimum distances between different groups.
At the moment hotels and tourism businesses can generally operate at 60% capacity and according to data from the Quintana Roo State Government, as of January 13, 2021, during the entire pandemic there had been a total of 554 COVID cases confirmed in Cozumel and the island's hospitals were currently at 10% occupation.
