The Government of Mexico City signed a collaboration agreement on Tuesday with the Airbnb hosting platform and the United Nations Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (Unesco), in order to promote the city as the “creative tourism capital of Latin America and the world”.
This initiative seeks to serve the new post-pandemic tourism and all those digital nomads who work remotely and are looking for any space to set up their office.
In addition, authorities from the Mexican capital government, Airbnb and UNESCO agreed that this will allow continue to reactivate economic growth, after the economic and health disruptions that have changed the global context, promoting above all the local economy and the revaluation of Mexican culture and creativity.
Frédéric Vacheron, UNESCO representative in Mexico, explained that this effort will involve identifying potential activities to be promoted as creative tourism, as well as training more hosts on the Airbnb platform and making a balance and roadmap to continue promoting the economic income from tourism in the Mexican capital.
Vacheron announced that they already have the first 19 tourist activities that will be promoted by the online lodging application, as well as that training for hosts will begin next November.
According to Nate Blecharczyk, co-founder of Airbnb, stays of more than 28 days in the Mexican capital grew by 30% between 2019 and 2022.
Meanwhile, he explained that 34% of Mexicans who offer their roomshouses and apartments on Airbnb, use this income to alleviate their debts and ordinary expenses, while half say that this income has helped them keep their home.
Ángel Terral, regional director of Airbnb Mexico, explained that, in 2021, the spill generated by tourism through the lodging application, without counting the cost of the room, apartment or house, amounted to 9,300 million pesos (467.5 million dollars), equivalent to 15% of the tourist activity of Mexico City, which was 64,000 million pesos (3,217 million dollars), according to official figures.
Terral also said that this new method of attracting tourists allows more Mexicans to enter in the tertiary sector of the economy focused on tourism and services, which, he said, is a sign of its power of inclusion.
In this regard, he announced that 50% of Mexicans who rent their roomshouses and apartments on Airbnb, are women.
The general coordinator of Advisors and International Affairs, Diana Alarcón, highlighted that Mexico City is the second international tourist attraction after Cancún, in the Mexican southeast, as well as the first place in receiving digital nomads and that they stay to reside for more than six months and even more than a year in Mexican territory.
For his part, Christian Leslie García Romero, general director of the Mixed Fund for Tourism Promotion of the Mexican capital government, explained that the lodging has been restored by 70% from 2019 levels, before the impact of the global pandemic by covid-19.
He also stated that, due to the Day of the Dead and the Formula 1 Grand Prix, next Sunday, Mexico City expects the visit of 410,000 tourists, of which it is estimated that 50,000 are foreigners.