Tulum wasn’t designed to carry this kind of weight. Not the weight of influencers, or the boutiques, or the thumping rhythms of rooftop DJs. What presses down hardest now is less visible, more corrosive. It’s the cumulative pressure of political indifference, predatory economics, and institutional silence. For years, the town whispered a promise, that here, under the sun and wrapped in jungle, you could breathe again. Now, even that breath feels taxed.

Today, three interconnected crises are tearing through the town’s fabric. Prices are so inflated that they alienate even high-end travelers. Law enforcement is turning extortion into routine. A taxi system that functions like a private mafia. But the real story isn’t just these problems, it’s how the absence of governance has allowed them to metastasize. Tulum’s wounds aren’t natural. They were inflicted. And they’re being left open.

Let’s look closely. It’s not pretty. But it’s necessary.

When Cost Becomes Contempt

Walk into any café near the beach and ask for a simple breakfast. Avocado toast, a juice, maybe a coffee. Forty dollars. That’s not brunch in Manhattan. That’s Tulum. Then comes the dinner bill, seventy, eighty, sometimes a hundred dollars for two modest plates and a couple of cocktails. Want to get back to your hotel after that? Prepare to drop another fifty on a ten-minute cab ride.

But the issue isn’t just price. Its value. Or rather, the dissonance between cost and experience. Tourists are increasingly vocal about feeling swindled. And it’s not hard to understand why. In exchange for premium European prices, many find themselves navigating unreliable service, understaffed venues, and infrastructure that collapses after a midsummer storm.

Behind this lies a model that prioritizes extraction over hospitality. Investors buy in bulk, mark up aggressively, and cash out. Property values have ballooned thanks to unchecked speculation. Local rents, meanwhile, have tripled in the last five years. Airbnb has sterilized entire blocks, replacing neighbors with weekenders. And municipal leaders? They watch. They nod. They cut ribbons at development openings.

There’s no talk of rent control. No price index to stabilize inflation. The only market force guiding Tulum now is hunger, the kind that doesn’t stop to ask what happens once the well dries up.

A waiter in La Veleta summed it up with tired eyes. “We used to live here. Now we just serve.”

Fear, Worn Like a Uniform

The police in Tulum are rarely seen as guardians. More often, they’re the people you avoid eye contact with at checkpoints. Their presence doesn’t reassure. It tenses the body. And not without reason.

A Brazilian tourist recalled being pulled over after dinner. She’d had a glass of wine. Not two, not three. One. Still, officers accused her of intoxicated driving. They didn’t ask for a test. They asked for dollars. She paid three hundred in cash to avoid being taken to a station that, as she later discovered, wasn’t even open that night.

Locals tell worse stories. Phones searched. Photos deleted. Threats of jail for “suspicious behavior.” And each interaction carries the same undertone: pay or be punished.

What’s more alarming is how systemic it all feels. Complaints filed with the state’s human rights commission routinely disappear into bureaucratic oblivion. Body cameras? Not mandated. Oversight boards? Underfunded and toothless. In 2022, nearly a third of the town’s public security budget was unaccounted for. No heads rolled.

At the national level, President López Obrador’s much-publicized deployment of the Guardia Nacional did little to shift the needle. In some cases, it simply moved the abuse to a new uniform. And with Fortaseg, the federal fund meant to support local police reform, cut entirely, municipalities like Tulum were left adrift, with no resources and even less will to change.

One might ask where the mayor stands in all this. Diego Castañón Trejo, elected under the banner of Morena, has been conspicuously absent from meaningful discourse on police abuse. His administration has released statements about “reviewing protocols.” No timelines. No consequences.

What’s truly dangerous here isn’t just the corruption. It’s the normalization. This is how things are. This is how they’ve always been. People stop expecting justice. And when that happens, the very idea of accountability dissolves.

The Taxi Cartel That Won the Town

Mobility in Tulum has become a controlled substance. Try calling an Uber. It won’t come. Not because there’s no demand, but because trying could get a driver’s windows smashed. That’s not my metaphor. That’s documented.

The local taxi union, the Sindicato de Taxistas “Tiburones del Caribe,” operates with unchallenged authority. They dictate prices, routes, and who gets to work. Fares are unlisted. Negotiation is useless. And attempts to break the monopoly, whether by rideshare apps or independent cooperatives, have been swiftly and often violently shut down.

In 2023, a group of locals tried to launch an app-based service. Within weeks, they faced threats, slashed tires, and one vehicle was set on fire. Police reports were filed. Nothing came of them. Instead, city hall issued a vague call to “respect labor agreements.”

The collusion is barely disguised. Several city officials, including members of the transport committee, have close family ties to the union. One councilman’s brother is a dispatcher. Another’s cousin oversees licensing. These are not conflicts of interest. These are structural guarantees.

The result is a two-tiered city. One where tourists pay exorbitantly to move around, and locals often can’t afford to move at all. A woman named Clara, who cleans rooms in Aldea Zama, told me she spends nearly 40 percent of her weekly pay on transport. “If I walk, I’m late. If I pay, I eat less.”

And while this might sound like a failure of regulation, it’s more accurately described as its deliberate absence.

The System Beneath It All

There’s a thread that binds these crises. And it’s not bad luck. It’s not cultural. It’s not “just how it is in Mexico.” It’s a political vacuum dressed up as management.

Zoning laws exist. They’re ignored. Transparency requirements are on the books. Rarely enforced. Every year, state politicians promise infrastructure investment, environmental protection, and support for small businesses. And every year, those promises vanish behind a new wave of resort contracts and development permits signed without public consultation.

Why does nothing change?

Because those benefiting from the status quo have no incentive to fix it, developers want lax oversight. Police want autonomy without scrutiny. The taxi union wants a monopoly. Politicians wish to the money, the silence, the post-term sinecures. They don’t govern. They broker.

Tulum’s decay is not accidental. It is permitted. Cultivated. Profitable.

What’s Still Possible, And Why It Matters

It’s easy to feel hopeless. But hopelessness is what the system banks on.

The fixes are not radical. Mandate fare meters. Require police body cams. Legalize ridesharing under strict local terms. Enforce zoning with independent audits. Offer tax incentives to businesses that hire locally and cap short-term rental saturation in residential areas.

These aren’t dreams. They’re policies that other cities have enacted with success. The only missing ingredient here is political will. Or public pressure strong enough to force it.

But waiting comes at a price. Every day of inaction compounds the damage not just to Tulum’s reputation, but to its people. It’s soul. It’s very viable.

Once, this was a place where people came to reconnect with something real. That thing, call it nature, peace, balance, is still here. Barely. Beneath the noise. Beneath the cement.

Whether it stays or slips away depends on what happens now.

We’d love to hear your thoughts, join the conversation on The Tulum Times’ social media.