Tourism brings Yucatan challenge
MEXICO CITY — Morning dawns on Mayan lands, north of the Yucatan Peninsula. The sun illuminates a giant poplar that guards a secret beneath its roots: the cenote of Kankirixche, a cave with a pool of crystalline water reaching 50 meters down.
Inside this wide pit of stone, catfish swim in the deep as swallows nest in the ceiling made of stalactites. Everything seems nature-made, except for a 35-step wooden staircase that serves to access the spectacle.
Outside, Jose Arceo Ku Ucan, a 62-year-old Mayan citizen, receives visitors and charges them 20 pesos (around $1) to enter. He said the cenote was a secret until two years ago when the small community of Uayalceh agreed to open it to the public.
It’s a good thing that the pyramid prohibits climbing in order to protect it.”
Yuna Hou,
“There are Sundays when 100 cars arrive,” said the Mayan, who was resting in the shade of a tree 15 blocks away from the cenote. Near the well, the only traces of human presence are restrooms and a restaurant built with the support of the government of Yucatan.
Kankirixche is only an example of how Yucatan is seeking to sustainably maximize its natural attractions where the Mayan civilization prospered almost 2,000 years ago.
Raul Paz, the director of Planning, Evaluation and Monitoring for the Yucatan Secretariat of Tourism, explains that community ecotourism projects have almost doubled to more than 60 in the last five years.
But the peninsula now faces the challenge of reconciling how to best protect its attractions with the increasing influx of tourists, which make up over 10 percent of its economy.
The star attraction of Yucatan is unquestionably the main pyramid of Kukulcan, at the heart of the pre-Hispanic city of Chichen Itza, which is among the 10 most visited archaeological sites in the world along with the Great Wall of China and the Parthenon in Greece.
Marco Antonio Santos, director of Chichen Itza, explains that 80 employees are in charge of guarding and maintaining the site, which receives thousands of tourists daily.
Eighty-five percent of visitors are foreigners, most of whom come from the United States and Europe. Since 2010, the influx of Asian tourists, mainly from China, has risen, and this segment now accounts for 5 percent of the 2.5 million annual visitors, Santos said.
Yuna Hou, a 36-year-old tourist from Beijing, was one of them. She had traveled with four Chinese friends to the site.
“It is very impressive and wonderful. One thousand years of history is a long time,” she said. “It’s a good thing that the pyramid prohibits climbing in order to protect it.”