Riviera Maya
Encyclopedia
Riviera Maya, also known as the Mayan Riviera, is a tourism
district following the coastal Highway 307
which parallels the Caribbean coastline of the Mexican
state of Quintana Roo
, located on the eastern portion of the Yucatán Peninsula
. This district historically started at the city of Playa del Carmen
and ended at the village of Tulum
, although the towns of Puerto Morelos
situated to the north and between Playa del Carmen and Cancun
as well as the town of Felipe Carrillo Puerto
situated 40 kilometres (24.9 mi) to the south of Tulum are both currently being promoted as part of the Riviera Maya tourist corridor.
The Riviera Maya was originally called the Cancun - Tulum corridor, but in 1999 it was renamed as the Riviera Maya with the aid of Lic. Miguel Ramón Martín Azueta who at the time was the mayor of the municipality of Solidaridad
. The municipality of Solidaridad includes the whole of the official Riviera Maya from Playa del Carmen in the north and south to Tulum and extending to some 40 km inland with the border with the state of Yucatan
.
The Riviera Maya is famous for its large scale all-inclusive resort
s and a historical tourism base of smaller boutique hotels as well as the many fine-dining restaurants available along the highway 307 and on or near the beaches. Luxury travel entities have been instrumental in increasing luxury villa rentals and yacht charters in the area however these only represent a small fraction of the total tourism accommodation available.
Government development plans include establishing a number of medium sized cities of ~200 000 inhabitants within the Riviera Maya with initial planning spanning 20 years. Target areas for urbanization include the towns and villages of: Puerto Morelos (technically outside the Riviera Maya), Puerto Aventuras
, Akumal
, Chemuyil, and Tulum
.
A major attraction throughout the Riviera Maya are coastal and reef aquatic activities dependent on the coastal water and the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System
(also known as the Belize Barrier Reef
) which begins near Cancun and continues along the whole length of the Riviera Maya continuing southward to Guatemala. This barrier reef system is the second longest in the world.
Activities at the most visited locations include Jet Skiing
, snorkeling
, scuba diving
, swimming in cenote
s, swimming with dolphins
, zip-lining
, horse
riding, sailing, and guided jungle tours. Archeology is also a big tourist draw in the area, including the popular archeological sites operated by the Instituto Nacional de Archeological such as Tulum on the coast, and Chichen Itza
and Coba
located some distance inland. The self-named ecoparks of Xcaret
and Xel-Ha also include some smaller archeological ruins as part of their attractions, but these natural water theme parks operated by private business consortia attract much larger crowds due to the diversity and range of activities provided, such as swimming with captive dolphins.
) striking generally outside the Riviera Maya. Groundwater and therefore cenote water temperatures are 25 °C (77 °F) year round. Coastal waters range from 26 °C (78.8 °F) in January to 29 °C (84.2 °F) in August.
, underground river network have formed by dissolution, and these have been explored and mapped by cave diving
through sinkhole
collapses locally called cenotes. The whole of the Yucatan Peninsula is underlain by a density stratified coastal aquifer system with a lens shaped fresh water body floating on top of intruding saline water. The formation of caves (speleogenesis
) within this coastal carbonate aquifer is principally associated with carbonate dissolution at the fresh-saline water contact within the aquifer. By 2008, the Quintana Roo Speleological Society (QRSS) reported more than 700 kilometres (435 mi) of flooded cave
passages within the limits of the Riviera Maya including the two longest underwater cave systems in the world of Sac Actun
and Ox Bel Ha. These groundwater resources, accessed via the thousands of cenotes throughout the landscape, once supported the Maya
civilizations and today remain the only natural sources of potable water in the area.
The Caribbean coastline is a series of crescent shaped white sand beaches interrupted every 1 – 10 km by rocky headlands and inlets, called caletas, through which groundwater discharges into the coastal water. Large sections of the extensive mangrove
swamps that lie behind the beaches and headlands are included in the areas scheduled for tourism development.
, approximately 50 km (31.1 mi) north of Playa del Carmen.
A new international airport is to be built in the near future directly serving the Riviera Maya region. There is debate as to which airport group should be the owner of this tourist destination hot spot, as it is very close to Cancun and some feel that Aeropuertos del Sureste ASUR (the current operators of the Cancun airport) should not be granted the concession of this airport as it would not be good for competition.
The Secretary for Communications and Transport (SCT) said that on November 9, 2009 the plans would be announced.
Tourism
Tourism is travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes. The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people "traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes".Tourism has become a...
district following the coastal Highway 307
Mexican Federal Highway 307
Mexican Federal Highway 307 is a Federal Highway of Mexico. It connects Cancún, Quintana Roo to Chetumal, Palenque, and Chiapas state, La Trinitaria....
which parallels the Caribbean coastline of the Mexican
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
state of Quintana Roo
Quintana Roo
Quintana Roo officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Quintana Roo is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 10 municipalities and its capital city is Chetumal....
, located on the eastern portion of the Yucatán Peninsula
Yucatán Peninsula
The Yucatán Peninsula, in southeastern Mexico, separates the Caribbean Sea from the Gulf of Mexico, with the northern coastline on the Yucatán Channel...
. This district historically started at the city of Playa del Carmen
Playa del Carmen
Playa del Carmen is a balneario resort city just south of Cancún on the coast of the Caribbean Sea, in the northeast of the Mexican state of Quintana Roo. The city is the seat of the Solidaridad municipality. In the 2010 census, the city had a population of 149,923 people and it is rapidly growing...
and ended at the village of Tulum
Tulum, Quintana Roo
Tulum is the largest community in the municipality of Tulum, Quintana Roo, Mexico. It is located on the Caribbean coast of the state, near the site of the archaeological ruins of Tulum...
, although the towns of Puerto Morelos
Puerto Morelos
Puerto Morelos is a town and sea port in Quintana Roo, Mexico's easternmost state, on the Yucatán Peninsula. The town is at the southern end of the municipality of Benito Juárez in the northeast of the state, about 36 km south of the resort city of Cancún...
situated to the north and between Playa del Carmen and Cancun
Cancún
Cancún is a city of international tourism development certified by the UNWTO . Located on the northeast coast of Quintana Roo in southern Mexico, more than 1,700 km from Mexico City, the Project began operations in 1974 as Integrally Planned Center, a pioneer of FONATUR Cancún is a city of...
as well as the town of Felipe Carrillo Puerto
Felipe Carrillo Puerto
Felipe Carrillo Puerto was a Governor of the Mexican state of Yucatán. He was born in the town of Motul, Yucatán, and was of partly indigenous Mayan background; he was rumored to be a descendant of the Nachi Cocom dynasty of Mayapan. He was a socialist who favored land reform, women's suffrage,...
situated 40 kilometres (24.9 mi) to the south of Tulum are both currently being promoted as part of the Riviera Maya tourist corridor.
The Riviera Maya was originally called the Cancun - Tulum corridor, but in 1999 it was renamed as the Riviera Maya with the aid of Lic. Miguel Ramón Martín Azueta who at the time was the mayor of the municipality of Solidaridad
Solidaridad
Solidaridad is a Dutch ecumenical development agency founded in 1969. Its main objective is the promotion of social justice, for which it runs three programs:*Fairtrade, for economic justice, with coffee, tropical fruits and cotton/textiles as sub-programs;...
. The municipality of Solidaridad includes the whole of the official Riviera Maya from Playa del Carmen in the north and south to Tulum and extending to some 40 km inland with the border with the state of Yucatan
Yucatán
Yucatán officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Yucatán is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 106 municipalities and its capital city is Mérida....
.
The Riviera Maya is famous for its large scale all-inclusive resort
All-inclusive resort
An all-inclusive resort is a holiday resort that includes a minimum of three meals daily, soft drinks, most alcoholic drinks, gratuities and possibly other services in the price. Many also offer sports and other activities included in the price as well. They are often located in warmer regions...
s and a historical tourism base of smaller boutique hotels as well as the many fine-dining restaurants available along the highway 307 and on or near the beaches. Luxury travel entities have been instrumental in increasing luxury villa rentals and yacht charters in the area however these only represent a small fraction of the total tourism accommodation available.
Government development plans include establishing a number of medium sized cities of ~200 000 inhabitants within the Riviera Maya with initial planning spanning 20 years. Target areas for urbanization include the towns and villages of: Puerto Morelos (technically outside the Riviera Maya), Puerto Aventuras
Puerto Aventuras
Puerto Aventuras is a community located in Solidaridad Municipality, Quintana Roo, Mexico. It had a 2010 census population of 5,979 inhabitants, and is located at an elevation of 9 meters above sea level. It is the second-largest community in Solidaridad Municipality, after the municipal seat,...
, Akumal
Akumal
Akumal is a small beach-front tourist resort community south of Cancún, between the towns of Playa del Carmen and Tulum. It is located in Tulum Municipality in the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico...
, Chemuyil, and Tulum
Tulum, Quintana Roo
Tulum is the largest community in the municipality of Tulum, Quintana Roo, Mexico. It is located on the Caribbean coast of the state, near the site of the archaeological ruins of Tulum...
.
A major attraction throughout the Riviera Maya are coastal and reef aquatic activities dependent on the coastal water and the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System
Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System
The Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System stretches over 1000 km from Isla Contoy at the tip of the Yucatán Peninsula down to the Bay Islands of Honduras...
(also known as the Belize Barrier Reef
Belize Barrier Reef
The Belize Barrier Reef is a series of coral reefs straddling the coast of Belize, roughly offshore in the north and in the south within the country limits...
) which begins near Cancun and continues along the whole length of the Riviera Maya continuing southward to Guatemala. This barrier reef system is the second longest in the world.
Activities at the most visited locations include Jet Skiing
Personal water craft
A personal water craft , also called water scooter, is a recreational watercraft that the rider rides or stands on, rather than inside of, as in a boat....
, snorkeling
Snorkeling
Snorkeling is the practice of swimming on or through a body of water while equipped with a diving mask, a shaped tube called a snorkel, and usually swimfins. In cooler waters, a wetsuit may also be worn...
, scuba diving
Scuba diving
Scuba diving is a form of underwater diving in which a diver uses a scuba set to breathe underwater....
, swimming in cenote
Cenote
A cenote is a deep natural pit, or sinkhole, characteristic of Mexico and Central America, resulting from the collapse of limestone bedrock that exposes groundwater underneath...
s, swimming with dolphins
Swimming with dolphins
The popularity of swimming with dolphins and other interactions with dolphins greatly increased in the 1980s and 1990s due to the satisfaction and learning that human beings experience while swimming with dolphins...
, zip-lining
Zip-line
A zip-line consists of a pulley suspended on a cable mounted on an incline...
, horse
Horse
The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...
riding, sailing, and guided jungle tours. Archeology is also a big tourist draw in the area, including the popular archeological sites operated by the Instituto Nacional de Archeological such as Tulum on the coast, and Chichen Itza
Chichen Itza
Chichen Itza is a large pre-Columbian archaeological site built by the Maya civilization located in the northern center of the Yucatán Peninsula, in the Municipality of Tinúm, Yucatán state, present-day Mexico....
and Coba
Coba
Coba is a large ruined city of the Pre-Columbian Maya civilization, located in the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico. It is located about 90 km east of the Maya site of Chichen Itza, about 40 km west of the Caribbean Sea, and 44 km northwest of the site of Tulum, with which it is...
located some distance inland. The self-named ecoparks of Xcaret
Xcaret Park
Xcaret Park is a privately owned and operated theme park, resort and self-described ecotourism development located in the Riviera Maya, a portion of the Caribbean coastline of Mexico's state of Quintana Roo that has been designated as a zone for tourism development...
and Xel-Ha also include some smaller archeological ruins as part of their attractions, but these natural water theme parks operated by private business consortia attract much larger crowds due to the diversity and range of activities provided, such as swimming with captive dolphins.
Climate
The mean annual temperature is 24–25 °C (75.2–77 F). The climate is dominated by a rainy season from May through November, and within the dry season there is a period dominated by northerly winds, called El Norte, which usually occurs in the months of January and February. The maximum mean annual precipitation throughout the Yucatan Peninsula occurs along the coast of the Riviera Maya with 1.5 metres (4.9 ft) of rainfall with a general decline to the NW with only 400 millimetres (1.3 ft) per year or less on the opposite side of the Peninsula. While the Caribbean coast of the Yucatan experiences a large number of tropical storms and hurricanes, the storm tracks and therefore landfalls of these are divergent to both the north (Cancun) and the south (south of Tulum and down to BelizeBelize
Belize is a constitutional monarchy and the northernmost country in Central America. Belize has a diverse society, comprising many cultures and languages. Even though Kriol and Spanish are spoken among the population, Belize is the only country in Central America where English is the official...
) striking generally outside the Riviera Maya. Groundwater and therefore cenote water temperatures are 25 °C (77 °F) year round. Coastal waters range from 26 °C (78.8 °F) in January to 29 °C (84.2 °F) in August.
Geography
The Riviera Maya is completely within the state of Quintana Roo on the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. The terrain is flat and covered by low tropical jungle. The geology is high purity carbonates down to a depth of 0.5 - 1.5 km below the surface. Mean annual rainfall is 1.5 m per year and the efficient infiltration results in the complete absence of any surface rivers. As is common in karstKARST
Kilometer-square Area Radio Synthesis Telescope is a Chinese telescope project to which FAST is a forerunner. KARST is a set of large spherical reflectors on karst landforms, which are bowlshaped limestone sinkholes named after the Kras region in Slovenia and Northern Italy. It will consist of...
, underground river network have formed by dissolution, and these have been explored and mapped by cave diving
Cave diving
Cave diving is a type of technical diving in which specialized equipment is used to enable the exploration of caves which are at least partially filled with water. In the United Kingdom it is an extension of the more common sport of caving, and in the United States an extension of the more common...
through sinkhole
Sinkhole
A sinkhole, also known as a sink, shake hole, swallow hole, swallet, doline or cenote, is a natural depression or hole in the Earth's surface caused by karst processes — the chemical dissolution of carbonate rocks or suffosion processes for example in sandstone...
collapses locally called cenotes. The whole of the Yucatan Peninsula is underlain by a density stratified coastal aquifer system with a lens shaped fresh water body floating on top of intruding saline water. The formation of caves (speleogenesis
Speleogenesis
Speleogenesis is the origin and development of caves, the primary process that determines essential features of the hydrogeology of karst and guides its evolution...
) within this coastal carbonate aquifer is principally associated with carbonate dissolution at the fresh-saline water contact within the aquifer. By 2008, the Quintana Roo Speleological Society (QRSS) reported more than 700 kilometres (435 mi) of flooded cave
Cave
A cave or cavern is a natural underground space large enough for a human to enter. The term applies to natural cavities some part of which is in total darkness. The word cave also includes smaller spaces like rock shelters, sea caves, and grottos.Speleology is the science of exploration and study...
passages within the limits of the Riviera Maya including the two longest underwater cave systems in the world of Sac Actun
Sac Actun
Sistema Sac Actun is an underwater cave system situated along the Caribbean coast of the Yucatán Peninsula with passages to the north and west of the village of Tulum. Exploration started from Gran Cenote west of Tulum...
and Ox Bel Ha. These groundwater resources, accessed via the thousands of cenotes throughout the landscape, once supported the Maya
Maya civilization
The Maya is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as for its art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems. Initially established during the Pre-Classic period The Maya is a Mesoamerican...
civilizations and today remain the only natural sources of potable water in the area.
The Caribbean coastline is a series of crescent shaped white sand beaches interrupted every 1 – 10 km by rocky headlands and inlets, called caletas, through which groundwater discharges into the coastal water. Large sections of the extensive mangrove
Mangrove
Mangroves are various kinds of trees up to medium height and shrubs that grow in saline coastal sediment habitats in the tropics and subtropics – mainly between latitudes N and S...
swamps that lie behind the beaches and headlands are included in the areas scheduled for tourism development.
Transportation
Most tourists to the Riviera Maya arrive through Cancún International AirportCancún International Airport
Cancún International Airport is located in Cancún, Quintana Roo, on the Caribbean coast of Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula. It is Mexico's second busiest airport, after Mexico City International Airport in Mexico City, but the biggest in Mexico and Latin America for International passengers...
, approximately 50 km (31.1 mi) north of Playa del Carmen.
A new international airport is to be built in the near future directly serving the Riviera Maya region. There is debate as to which airport group should be the owner of this tourist destination hot spot, as it is very close to Cancun and some feel that Aeropuertos del Sureste ASUR (the current operators of the Cancun airport) should not be granted the concession of this airport as it would not be good for competition.
The Secretary for Communications and Transport (SCT) said that on November 9, 2009 the plans would be announced.