You can still smell the salt before you see the sea. In Tulum, that used to mean freedom, a barefoot arrival to something untouched and eternal. Today, it’s more of a warning. What once shimmered with wild luxury and untamed beauty is now stumbling through its worst tourist season in over a decade.
At the height of summer, a time when hammocks were full, taxis scarce, and beach clubs bursting with cocktails and techno beats, Tulum now feels eerily hollow. Coastal hotel occupancy has fallen to just 30%. In the town center, it’s barely 15%. Airbnb hosts, once drunk on easy profits, are now stuck refreshing calendars that stay blank week after week.
Jorge Portilla Sounds the Alarm
Jorge Alberto Portilla Mánica, a longtime local and current regidor in Tulum’s city council, isn’t hiding the truth. “It’s the worst season we’ve had in the last decade,” he told Riviera Maya News. “We are at historically low levels.”
And that’s not just a matter of a slow month. It’s a full-blown collapse in what should be Tulum’s high season.
Sargassum Isn’t the Only Thing Choking the Beaches
A Natural Phenomenon Becomes a Civic Catastrophe
According to Portilla, this year’s sargassum influx is the most severe in nearly four decades. The coastline has been overtaken by vast mats of thick brown seaweed, reeking of sulfur and banishing swimmers back to their hotel rooms.
But sargassum is not the root of the problem, just its most visible face. What truly plagues Tulum is more insidious: unchecked development, broken policies, and a tourism model built on exclusion and exploitation.
Restrictions and Red Tape: The Human-Made Barrier
Access to public beaches, once the pride of the region, is now entangled in bureaucracy. Want to enjoy the sun and sand at Parque El Jaguar? That’ll cost you. Foreigners pay $22 (about 415 pesos), while Mexican nationals are charged $14 (255 pesos). For many, the price is less offensive than the principle.
“This is affecting both national and international visitors,” Portilla admitted, acknowledging that these restrictions are driving people away from the very experience they came for.
Economic Collapse Dressed in Boho Linen
From Airbnb to Beachfront Hotels: Vacancy Is the New Normal
Even in a normal slow season, Tulum never looked this empty. Now, in the middle of July, bars are closing early, souvenir shops collect dust, and boutique hotels operate at a whisper. The once-vibrant downtown resembles a stage set with no play, no actors, and no audience.
Vacation rentals? Practically deserted. Portilla confirms that short-term rentals have been hemorrhaging demand for months.
Prices Inflated on the Illusion of Eternity
“We inflated prices like we’d never fall,” Portilla reflects. And fall they did. Sky-high costs for food, lodging, and transportation, once justified by booming demand, now feel detached from reality. Water can cost as much as a craft beer in Berlin. And a short taxi ride might leave a deeper dent in your wallet than a dinner in Barcelona.
Still, authorities have shown little will to regulate. Locals and travelers alike have pleaded for relief from abusive taxi prices, corrupt police practices, and overpriced everything. They’ve begged for access to beaches that belong to the people, not just to developers with the right friends.
No one listens. Or worse, they nod politely, then raise the prices anyway.
The Cultural Festival Lifeline, or Just a Distraction?
A Band-Aid Where Surgery Is Needed
Faced with economic freefall, Portilla and the local government are placing their hopes on a new cultural and tourism festival. The plan is to draw visitors back into the town center, diversify the local economy, and create an annual event that might one day rival the beach scene.
“It’s about revitalizing the local economy,” he says. “We want something that complements the beach, not competes with it.”
The idea isn’t without merit. But trying to revive a broken tourism system with a festival feels like offering a guitar solo to a sinking ship. It might sound beautiful for a moment, but the water is still rising.
A Town at War with Itself
When the Real Demands Are Ignored
The bitter truth? Sargassum didn’t destroy Tulum. Greed did. And silence helped.
For years, residents have been asking, pleading, for something simple: fairness. They want clean governance, access to their own beaches, regulation on wild pricing, and an end to the suffocating corruption of police and taxis.
Instead, they get Instagram campaigns and vague promises about “redefining the tourist experience.”
Tourists, meanwhile, aren’t stupid. They talk. They leave reviews. They compare. And when they realize that a Caribbean escape now comes with paywalled beaches, unregulated prices, and uniformed extortion, they start booking flights to Costa Rica instead.
Tulum’s Future Can’t Be Sold at a Premium
Portilla is right about one thing: Tulum can no longer depend solely on its sea and sun. But it also can’t depend on festivals, overpriced mezcal, or empty buzzwords like “eco-chic.”
To survive, the town needs something it once had in abundance: authenticity. It needs leaders who protect, not just profit. Policies that include, not just extract. A vision of tourism that values the experience, not just the receipt.
Tulum once offered something raw, something rare, a kind of paradise that didn’t need permission to feel magical.
Now, it just feels gated.
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