With the Road to Guadalupe, Bastions of Catholicism and Paths of Faith, Mexico City is giving a further boost to religious tourism in the country’s capital.
During the presentation of promotional material for the Religious Tourism Programme, Secretary of Tourism, Miguel Torruco Marqués, said that this move will improve the programme’s reach and positioning in the market that is being targeted.
He declared that government officials in Mexico City, through the Ministry of Tourism have linked the rich amount of religious heritage, customs and art to tourist activities, and have put in place products such as the Road to Guadalupe, Bastions of Catholicism and Paths of Faith.
The official said that this programme will help to keep tourism “on track,” which is reflected in the fact that 10,725,000 tourists stayed in hotels in the country’s capital between January and October, with 2.073 million being international tourists and 8.651 million local.
Added to this is an average hotel occupancy of 65.5% and an economic spin-off benefit of 3.93 billion dollars.
However, Torruco Marqués explained that the city’s 94 five-star hotels reported an average occupancy of 87% on weekends.
The promotional material for the religious tourism programme includes 27 video clips of each of the temples comprising a religious tour, as well as 32,000 brochures, 33,000 leaflets, 32,500 passports to be presented to pilgrims at the time, and 32,500 certificates of the Guadalupe pilgrimage.
During the announcement of the programme the official said the information will be supplemented by the "Travel Guide CDMX" application that may already be accessed for free on mobile devices with iOS and Android operating systems.
In that regard, Torruco Marqués said that the different sanctuaries already have plates with QR codes where information on the precincts may be obtained through smartphones.
