Insecurity and tourism in Quintana Roo, Mexico (1997-2013)

Abstract

The objective in this article is to determine whether tourism in Quintana Roo is being affected by the increasing number of crimes and, if true, then be able to prove this fact by means of an econometrical model. For this purpose, the variables of federal jurisdiction are retaken as deemed to be those having a stronger impact on the perception of insecurity and hotel occupancy. Through the model results it is possible to observe that the relation between federal jurisdiction crimes and tourism is inverse; i.e., that when there is an increase in crimes, a decrease occurs in the number of tourists. However, the impact of criminality works according to perception and, therefore, we decided that this effect can be achieved by delaying the explanatory variable; for this reason, it fell behind for a period, this meaning that what relates to traveler insecurity and/or fear appears with one year lag. Therefore it is concluded that wherever federal jurisdiction's crimes increase in the State of Quintana Roo, hotel density for the following year decreases in the entity; in absolute terms, this means fewer tourists spending the night in the hotel infrastructure of the State.