A civil organization in Baja California Sur is collecting signatures to ask the governor of the entity to reverse an agreement between a company and the port administration in order to avoid the impacts of mass tourism in the city of La Paz, in northwestern Mexico.
“They want to turn us into Cabo San Lucas, where we know the precariousness with which the suburbs live. Mass tourism like in Los Cabos is given all the privileges, they don't lack water or electricity, so the arrival of more would worsen the situation of scarcity of services for the local population,” said Eduardo Sánchez, head of the City Laboratory at BCSicletos.
In August 2021, the company Aquamayan Adventures and the parastatal company Integral Port Administration of Baja California Sur (APIBCS) signed an agreement, where the latter cedes part of the port of Pichilingue to receive tourist cruises in La Paz.
In this current agreement, it was agreed to receive at least 150,000 passengers a year, who represent four times more than those arrived in 2023 and a number of people equivalent to 60% of the city's fixed population.
BCSicletos sees in the agreement the intention of the state government to promote mass tourism despite the environmental and social impact it generates, said Carlos Mancilla, director of the organization BCSicletos. The organization collects signatures from citizens that will be presented to Governor Víctor Castro Cosío, at the end of January, to request the cancellation of the agreement and that the Bay of La Paz be declared free of mega-cruises.
“API is the signatory entity and being a public-private entity represents the interests of the state government, so if anyone can resolve this conflict it's the governor. He can roll back the agreement and he is solely responsible for this,” Mancilla said.
Collection of citizen signatures that join the BCSicletos petition. Source: Daniela Reyes
Resort for receiving cruises
In addition to the reception of cruise passengers, the agreement allows Aquamayan Adventures to execute a project that consisted of the construction of a tourist center for recreational, cultural, gastronomic, sports, commercial and leisure activities; it contemplated the extension of the multipurpose pier No. 2 and dredging the bay for the berth of Oasis-type cruise ships.
The technical proposal for the project was submitted to the Environmental Impact Assessment Process in November 2021 before the Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources and received 338 comments from citizens during a public consultation, however, in March 2022, the procedure obtained a negative resolution due to the company's withdrawal.
“It's a small project to make the pier more beautiful, to set up shops and restaurants, but they paint it like Yokohama (one of the largest ports in Japan) and it's going to put an end to the whale shark, but it's bad information with certain interests. I am not going to say that it does not pollute because they are internal combustion and emit smoke, but they are not harmful. There are ports in the world that have a thousand times more traffic than here and nothing happens,” said Arturo Musi Ganem, president of the Mexican Cruise Association, when asked about the refusal of the Aquamayan project.
Cruise ship arriving at the Pichilingue port. Source: APIBCS
For this article, we searched for the company Aquamayan Adventures, registered in Cancun, Quintana Roo, as well as Mauricio Hamui Hilwani, its main partner and legal representative, who is also the general director of the Mahahual cruise ship pier and is a partner of at least 45 companies mainly dedicated to tourism and construction in Cancun, Cozumel and Chetumal, however, there are no public means to contact them.
Cruise Tourism Trend
During 2023, 269 cruise ships and a total of 592,036 passengers arrived in Baja California Sur, of whom 93% arrived in Los Cabos. In the case of La Paz, we can see how, with the exception of 2021, there has been a trend of increase in the total number of passengers and in the average number of these passengers per cruise ship.
In December 2024, the Senate of the Republic approved an increase in the tax for vacationing in Mexico for international tourists to 42 dollars or approximately 860 pesos, including cruise passengers, who previously enjoyed an exemption from this payment.
“Next year is very uncertain with the tax we want to impose. It may be that we miss a lot of arrivals. I estimated that we were going to have a growth of 10 to 15 percent, but with the tax, shipping companies are thinking about it because it's like three times what they pay right now. It's going to make us the most expensive ports in the world. This tax can take us out of the market and dramatically lower our arrivals,” said Musi Ganem.
The Ministry of Finance and Public Credit postponed the implementation of this tax until July 1, 2025, although it was originally scheduled to take effect on January 1.
Post-demonstration against cruise ship pollution
One of the main concerns of BCSicletos, if the trend in the arrival of cruise ships continues, is the air pollution they would generate. Mancilla points out that a mega-cruise pollutes as much as 30,000 cars and would affect air quality. In addition, there is not enough infrastructure in a city as small as La Paz for mass tourism, he added.
“They obviously cause irreversible damage to the ecosystem, to the environment, in terms of water pollution, harm to animals, to people, to air quality. Also thinking about mobility issues, we are very concerned that they think that 7,000 people can be mobilized from Pichilingue to the city when we only have one road for it. So there are no real conditions for that model to detonate the city of La Paz,” Mancilla said.
To express these concerns, to socialize information and to invite citizens to participate, BCSicletos called for a post-demonstration on December 13 on the Malecón de La Paz that combined the traditions of the Christmas season with the demonstration against this model of tourism.
The post-demonstration was attended by people who live in El Esterito and El Manglito, founding neighborhoods of the city made up of fishermen, there was a play, childhood drawings were exhibited that resulted from the information workshops that BCSicletos had in public schools and two piñatas were broken.
Play at the posadifestation on the Malecón de La Paz. Source: Daniela Reyes
“Mega-cruises are accompanied by not only environmental, but also social and urban vices. It encourages competition for resources, the privatization of tourist services, human trafficking and drug consumption and trafficking. As far as you can see, there is no element to give the green light to such an aggressive project,” Mancilla said during the post-demonstration.
Cozumel, the counterexample
La Paz has been twinned in the fight against the negative impacts of mega-cruises with other destinations such as Cozumel, Quintana Roo, the most important cruise port in Mexico, since it receives more than half of the cruise passengers the country receives each year.
“It's an island of less than 100,000 people that receives nearly fifty times its population in cruise ship visitors. Imagine the number of people on such a small island making use of urban services, water, drainage, garbage, and so on. This is a social-economic and environmental problem,” said Rodrigo Huesca, a member of the Isla Cozumel citizen collective, a group that emerged in 2021.
Currently, the bus to which Huesca belongs won an amparo to stop the construction of the fourth pier to receive mega-cruises in Cozumel.
In La Paz as in Cozumel, the argument that counteracts these citizen claims is that cruise passengers generate a very large local economic impact; Musi Ganem estimates it at 90 dollars per person in 8 hours.
But those incomes are not reflected in the living conditions of the population, according to Huescas.
“A very significant percentage of the population continues to live in poverty, the city is still in a deplorable situation and we have become extremely dependent on this industry. How can it be that being such an important cruise ship destination that boasts of leaving a lot of money, the population lives so badly,” Huescas lamented.
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