It has been a strange year for tourism in Los Cabos. After starting the year well, the number of international visitors arriving by air dipped significantly below expectations in both March and April: down 7.1% and 9.7% relative to 2025 numbers for those months, respectively. To make matters worse, as noted last month, domestic arrivals have been slipping with disheartening regularity since last summer.
What’s strange is that the number of tourists coming to Los Cabos this year hasn’t dropped overall. That’s because Mexico’s Pacific Coast ports are in the middle of an unprecedented cruise ship boom. In 2025, Ensenada, Cabo San Lucas and Puerto Vallarta — the top Pacific Coast ports — all posted record numbers, and all finished the year with over one million passenger arrivals.
A balancing of numbers
Last year may have been a record year for cruise ship passengers in Cabo San Lucas, but that record won’t last long. That’s because the 2026 numbers logged have been staggering. Through April, Cabo San Lucas has welcomed 158 cruise ships so far this year, carrying 597,981 passengers. For the same period last year — again, 2025 was a record year — the destination received 102 ships with 355,707 passengers. So the number of ships is up 54.9%, and the number of passengers is up over 68%.
These astonishing figures help balance the disappointing air arrivals so far this year, which, through April, are down 2.9% for international visitors and 3.9% for international and domestic visitors combined. In sheer numbers, Los Cabos is down about 107,000 tourists this year. That’s by air. Meanwhile, via cruise ship, it’s up over 242,000 this year. That’s a net positive, right?
Not at all. That type of math doesn’t work in reality because the value of tourists who fly to Los Cabos is worth so many times more than those who arrive via cruise ships.
An imbalance of value
On a recent Sunday, when two cruise ships were at anchor in Cabo San Lucas Bay, I walked through the downtown area and saw very few tourists. Puzzled by this, I called a source knowledgeable about local cruise ship matters. “That’s because so few of them are actually getting off the ship,” he told me. Are they scared? I asked. “No, just cheap.”
In 2026, the average cruise ship arriving in Cabo San Lucas carries 3,785 passengers. There’s no data available on how many stay on the ship in port versus those who debark to enjoy shopping, dining and activities. But we do know that traditionally, the average cruise ship tourist is worth US $80 to $100 dollars to the local economy. Multiply that by 3,785 and the sum is certainly not negligible. Cruise ships do bring value that local business owners very much appreciate.
But compare those tourists, who stay for a few hours, with those who arrive by air, and, according to the most recent data, stay for 4.7 days, and spend about US $2,000 on hotel rooms alone (As of January 2026, during the height of “high season,” the average hotel rate was US $499 per night). So, at a minimum, the average fly-in tourist is worth at least 20 times more in economic value than the average cruise ship tourist, and that’s not even counting what these airline brought visitors are spending on food, drinks, transportation and activities.
That’s why a surfeit of cruise ship tourists can never replace a dearth of fly-in tourists, no matter how many of the former there are, or how many records they break. And it’s why the Los Cabos Tourism Board (Fiturca) puts so much emphasis on the establishment of new air routes.
Courting the European tourism market
Just last week, Francisco Villaseñor, director of Los Cabos International Airport, told the Gringo Gazette that “tourism and airport officials are seeking a direct air connection between Los Cabos and Cancún as part of a broader strategy to attract more international travelers, particularly from Europe.”
Two weeks ago, a delegation of Los Cabos tourism officials and local hotel representatives led by Fiturca’s managing director, Rodrigo Esponda, was in Frankfurt, Germany, to attend IMEX Frankfurt, one of the world’s largest trade shows for the meetings, conferences and events industry. Frankfurt, not coincidentally, is where the only direct European flight to Los Cabos, from Condor Airlines, originates.
So while airline passenger numbers from the U.S. and within Mexico may have dipped in recent months, Los Cabos tourism officials are working to boost arrivals from other parts of the world, and also to position the destination as a stop on longer vacations for Europeans that may have begun elsewhere in Mexico, like Cancún. This kind of strategic thinking is why tourism to the destination in the long term, over the past decade, has been up an impressive 130%. It’s also why Los Cabos continues to dominate tourism within Baja California Sur, accounting for 3.8 million, or 84%, of the over 4.52 million tourists who flew into the state in 2025.
Michelin Guide joy in La Paz
The Michelin Guide’s latest selections for Mexico were announced on May 20, 2026. Los Cabos, home to one Michelin star at Cocina de Autor and 14 recommended restaurants, saw no new additions or subtractions. La Paz, however, the state capital, became the first destination in BCS outside Los Cabos and Todos Santos to host a restaurant worthy of the guide’s coveted recognition.
That’s Nemi Restaurante, helmed by chef Alejandro Villagómez, who worked for 10 years under acclaimed chef Enrique Olvera at Pujol in Mexico City — itself honored with two Michelin Guide stars — before opening his own restaurant in the historic heart of La Paz in October 2019. At Nemi, “the tasting menu focuses almost exclusively on the bounty of Baja California — though it also welcomes guests like French truffles —all perfectly paired with Mexican wines,” Michelin Guide, which awarded “recommended” status to the restaurant, notes.
Elsewhere around the Baja California peninsula, several new eateries were added to the Michelin Guide, including Comal Restaurante in Ensenada, and Amapola and Fireside in Valle de Guadalupe. Additionally, Damiana in Valle de Guadalupe, already the possessor of a coveted Michelin star — one of five such “starred” restaurants in Baja California — was also awarded a new “green star,” indicative of its commitment to sustainability and responsible restaurant practices.
Chris Sands is a writer and editor for Mexico News Daily, and the former Cabo San Lucas local expert for the USA Today travel website 10 Best and writer of Fodor’s Los Cabos travel guidebook. He has also contributed to numerous other websites and publications, including The San Diego Union-Tribune, Marriott Bonvoy Traveler, Forbes Travel Guide, Porthole Cruise and Travel, and Cabo Living.
