Puerto Vallarta appears to be back in favor as foreign tourists head for the resort in far greater numbers than in recent years.
In the first seven months of 2014, 1.42 million international visitors passed through the Puerto Vallarta airport, according to the facility’s operators, Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacifico (GAP). That’s a massive increase of 18.9 percent compared with last year.
July, usually a slow month for foreign tourism, has seen whopping rise in foreign visitors with airline passenger figures up almost 30 percent over 2013.
Mexicans are also taking more flights to Puerto Vallarta. Domestic passenger traffic to the port is up six percent compared with last year.
GAP’s positive numbers are backed up by national tourism stats, which show the Puerto Vallarta-Riviera Nayarit corridor to be Mexico’s fastest growing tourism region this year, with growth of 18.4 percent compared to Los Cabos at 15.6 percent and Cancun-Riviera Maya at 7.8 percent.
Rodolfo Lopez Negrete, general director of Mexico’s Tourism Promotion Council, said growth has been fuelled by a successful promotional campaign highlighting both Vallarta and the Riviera Nayarit as a single destination.
Also, several new routes to Vallarta have opened this year, including domestic flights from Guanajuato and Guadalajara, as well as international options from Denver, Colorado and the United Kingdom.