Hoteliers Okay the Building of a Home Port in Playa del Carmen

Francisco Cordova Lira Soto, chief of the Xcaret Corporate Group, announced the beginning of construction works for the new Puerta Rivera Maya-Xcaret home port in Playa del Carmen two months from now. The $80 million project will give the group a chance to lift revenues by 15 to 20 percent.

Mr. Lira explained the new home port or pier for cruises will be executed in coordination with Carnival Cruise Lines and will be ready to accommodate 800,000 passengers over the next six years. These tourists are expected to spend some $200 million in all.

As soon as the announcement started making headlines in the local press, hoteliers began taking a softer position toward the project. At the onset, this segment had posed staunch opposition to the building of the new pier, claiming the need to collect fees for the use of the home port, though not necessarily the $30 rate they had initially proposed.

However, Jose Acevedo Peña, general manager of the Mayan Riviera Hotel Association in Playa del Carmen, stressed his group´s stance against the making of the home port. Mr. Peña, who believes the coming of cruise liners will pose “some kind of unfair competition for the hotel sector,” iterated that his group agreed on the implementation of individual fees to be levied on tourists.