Mexico's Mayan Train will attract more tourism and more progress

It will be his last time at FITUR.  For Miguel Torruco Marqués, Mexico's Minister of Tourism, these last six years have gone by very quickly, although he leaves with a good feeling: 2023 was a very successful year for the tourism industry in the Aztec country, with almost 40 million international tourists and foreign currency worth 30 billion dollars.

"We are currently in ninth place in terms of foreign exchange earnings, which is a big improvement on the figures for 2018, when we were in seventeenth place," he confesses with satisfaction.

Torruco Marqués is a prominent businessman in the sector who is very familiar with this capricious industry which, as it can experience such a boom, also reacts negatively to a series of internal and external factors. 

He has been Minister of Tourism since 1 December 2018 and will end his term in office this year because the six-year term of the current president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has come to an end. There will be a general election on 2 June.

We spoke exclusively to Minister Torruco Marqués a few days before he boards the plane that will bring him and his team to Madrid for a hectic week of meetings, both inside the IFEMA Trade Fairs and Congress Centre, in the beautiful pavilion that Mexico sets up year after year at the International Tourism Fair (FITUR), and outside its walls. "This year we will have a pavilion for the Mayan Train".  

He confesses that he feels satisfied with his work: "When people always talked about Mexico as a great tourist power, they always boasted about the number of tourists received, pointing out that we were in seventh or eighth place; but they were silent in saying, in the world ranking, where we were... at the beginning of the Administration, we were in a distant seventeenth place in foreign exchange earnings and in per capita spending we were in fortieth place". 

The reality of these figures, says Minister Torruco Marqués, is that Mexico was losing its position in the international arena because 92% of tourists were concentrated in six places: Cancún, Mexico City, Los Cabos, Puerto Vallarta, Guadalajara and Monterrey.  

"But why six places when there are 275 tourist destinations in Mexico? That was part of the fallacy of years ago and in the meantime we continued to lose positioning," he says.  

That is why, he adds, since 2019, Mexico has begun major works: for example, the Tren Maya, which is the equivalent of a luxury train from Lisbon to Paris, 1,554 kilometres with almost 30 stations, 14 of which are for the benefit of the population.  

"Because it is not as we have been told in the press that we have been called predators of the environment. On the contrary, archaeological sites have been rescued and many museums are being given new life. 50% of the Tren Maya, the track already existed, but it was abandoned... it was the track of the Tren del Sureste, so all we had to do was redo the curves and put in new technology material to have the Tren Maya," he explains, convinced of the project's success.  

In addition, Torruco Marqués continues, there will be four trains: "For the local population to support the people so that they can go directly to work in a dignified, comfortable and safe way, and instead of taking three hours to get to another place, they will take one hour; another train will be a freight train; another one will be a tourist train and the fourth one is a large luxury train with a dining room and cabins". 

The Tren del Istmo de Tehuantepec train was also built, which is 360.4 kilometres long and is considered a strategic bridge linking the two oceans, the Pacific and the Atlantic.  "This is how anchor attractions have been created". 

Torruco Marqués defends the projects with vision: "It is true that at the beginning the changes were not to our liking because we removed subsidies and there was criticism. Then came the pandemic and fortunately the presidential instruction was not to restrict international flights and our fair was not cancelled, in fact, we innovated with the Tianguis Turístico Digital and 61 nations visited us," he recalls.

Regarding the data on the behaviour of tourism in the country in 2023, Torruco shared the following information: "Mexico is in ninth place in terms of foreign exchange and in per capita spending we went from 40th to 30th place, and the new centres with new products have not yet opened nationally".  

In Europe, trains are seen as progress, a few months ago the train from Madrid to Paris was re-established, in Mexico they were full of criticism for building the Tren Maya and yet, in spite of everything, it is already starting to operate in some of its stages. 

Can European tourists use the Tren Maya? 

The first two large sections have already been inaugurated: the section from Campeche to Cancún; then, recently, Cancún was inaugurated, all of Mérida, Campeche; but the special section was from Campeche-Escárcega to Palenque; and on 29 February, the section from Cancún-Riviera Maya-Chetumal-Bakalar will be inaugurated, and I hope that on that same inauguration we can enter through the jungle to inaugurate Xpujil, Calakmul... it is the section to Palenque.

For the communities that are there that means a success because they are going to receive many tourists....

It is incredible to see the people when we pass by taking photos and applauding with a great desire to improve. I will give you a fact: in the last 36 years, from 1982 to 2018, which lasted the famous neoliberal period in Mexico, there was an average growth of 2% and in 2023, the southeast grew by 6% but globally we will end with a 3.4% GDP growth, but the most impressive thing is that the Foreign Direct Investment in tourism alone last year was 4,275 million dollars, 260% more. 

There have been substantial investments that have catapulted us to the sixth position in the world in terms of Foreign Investment attracted with large-scale major projects. There are 105 large projects that already place us in sixth place behind the United States, Spain, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates. 

Connectivity is key, he continues: "The biggest air bridge between Europe and America is between Madrid and Mexico City, at a global level we are practically connected like no other country."

"But we have also promoted flights such as that of the United Arab Emirates, which lands in Barcelona, and this has boosted an important segment of the Spanish market," he stresses.    

Are you going to finish the Tren Maya?

All the major works are going to be delivered this year.  There will be no work left pending, I can guarantee that... I believe that in the future Mexico must continue with its promotion and avoid spending money uselessly. 

The cost of the train would originally be 140,000 million pesos and is already going for 200,000 million pesos, but Torruco, is confident that it is a magnificent investment that, despite criticism from environmentalists, "respects nature" and will have twenty themed stations. "  

The potential generated around this activity is incredible because it also detonates many sub-sectors. The model no longer seeks to depend only on Cancun, Mexico City, Los Cabos, Puerto Vallarta, Guadalajara and Monterrey, but to diversify the engine by boosting the whole country so that more people benefit from tourism.  

Torruco also recalled how essential it is to improve communication routes and make it easier for both domestic and international travellers to travel.  The Mayan Train is seen as a great opportunity for hundreds of communities that could have a better future thanks to foreign currency.