The Quintana Roo municipalities of Tulum and Felipe Carrillo Puerto are projected to see their populations increase by 447% by 2050, according to projections by the Agrarian, Land and Urban Development Ministry (Sedatu).

The dramatic population increase is being driven by an increase in tourism and internal migration in response to a booming labour market.

Quintana Roo was the only state in Mexico to record double-digit growth in 2023, bolstered not only by revenue from tourist destinations but by investment in the Maya Train and the new Tulum airport.

The new international airport in the resort city of Tulum opened in December 2023 and by mid-June was receiving roughly 2,000 passengers per day. With new routes from Canada and the US pending, Javier Diego Campillo, the director of the Tulum International Airport, expects traffic to double by the end of the year, projecting a total of 1.4m passengers.

The $140m Jaguar National Park in Tulum is likely to open its doors by September and the Maya Train project — when completed — is expected to attract additional tourists to the state and the entire Yucatán Peninsula.