Cancún Residents Avoid Their Own Beaches!

Cancún, a popular tourist destination known for its sun-soaked beaches, welcomed 33.7 million visitors in 2023. However, a surprising number of Cancún's own residents, both young and old, have never seen the sea or rarely visit the beaches. This trend has been observed for over a decade and has prompted the municipal government of Benito Juárez to develop a program aimed at encouraging locals to frequent the beaches more often.

The initiative is currently in the planning stages, according to the municipal president, Ana Patricia Peralta. She explained that the Municipal Planning Institute (Implan) is leading the project, which will be funded through local resources. Peralta acknowledged that while the beaches are public property, factors such as time constraints, distance, and associated costs often prevent residents from enjoying them.

"We are conducting a survey to understand how many residents of Cancún actually visit the beach, how they get there, and what the associated costs are," Peralta said. "This project, spearheaded by Implan, will also address other important issues related to mobility, beach access, and lifeguard towers."

A study conducted by the Urban Observatory in 2017 found that only 60 percent of Cancún's population visited the beaches once or twice a year. At the time, the city's population was 438,213 residents. As of 2023, the population of Cancún has grown to 1,022,600.

The study also examined how residents spent their free time. It found that 30.4 percent of residents visited the beaches once a year; 29.4 percent, once every six months; 27.8 percent, once a month; 7.6 percent, every 15 days; and 4.8 percent, weekly. Young people aged 15 to 22 were the most frequent beachgoers, followed by those aged 31 to 38, and then those aged 19 to 46. Middle-class residents were the most likely to visit the beaches, followed by the lower class, and finally, the lower-middle class.

The study concluded that despite the beauty of the beaches and efforts to improve their infrastructure, accessibility remained a problem. This was due to poor public transport services and interference from security guards at certain hotels or beach clubs, who often tried to restrict access under the guise of the beaches being "private" or "belonging to the hotel". There have also been reports of children living in marginalized communities on the outskirts of the city who have never seen the sea.