A Bank of Mexico model scored the coast in 1969, and Cancún is the beach it chose.
Cancún was chosen by a scoring model, then built by the government when private investors would not.
The Hotel Zone sits on a barrier island. The all-inclusive format arrived years after the first hotels.
The years the planning record and the first hotels already give.
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| Late 1960s | Mexico wanted a Caribbean resort that could take on the Bahamas, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico, earn foreign currency, and bring work to the southeast. Acapulco faced the Pacific and had grown around a city that was already there. |
| 1969 | INFRATUR's model scored the coast on weather, water temperature, beach quality, hurricane exposure, access, culture, land, and regional need. Officials visited the favoured sites. Cancún came out on top and was approved. |
| 1974 | INFRATUR becomes FONATUR, and Cancún is the first Integrally Planned Centre. Playa Blanca opens with about 72 rooms. Hotel Bojórquez and Cancún Caribe follow in the same period. Ixtapa, Los Cabos, Loreto, and Huatulco follow later, with no separate years given. |
| 1975 | More than a dozen hotels, and something like 100,000 visitors. |
| 1984 | Palace opens Beach Palace. The city is barely ten years old. |
| 1988 | Hurricane Gilbert. Hotels reopen larger and more modern than the ones the storm took. |
| Late 1990s | Development had moved south on Highway 307 through Puerto Morelos, Playa del Carmen, Akumal, and Tulum. The corridor takes the name Riviera Maya. |
| 2005 | Hurricane Wilma. About 2.7 million cubic metres of sand are dredged from offshore and pumped back along roughly eight miles of shore. |
From the scoring model to the rebuilt beach.
Place, plan, adults only, and From price, one row per open stay.
| Playa Mujeres | Included | Yes | From $382 | |
| Cancún | Included | No | From $306 | |
| Isla Mujeres | Included | No | From $187 | |
| Playa Mujeres | Included | Yes | From $310 | |
| Playa Mujeres | Included | Yes | From $269 | |
| Playa Mujeres | Included | No | From $214 | |
| Cancún | Included | No | From $300 | |
| Cancún | Included | No | From $167 | |
| Cancun | Included | No | From $265 | |
| Cancun | Included | No | From $274 | |
| Cancún | Optional add-on | No | From $73 | |
| Cancun | Included | Yes | From $325 | |
| Cancún | Optional add-on | No | From $89 | |
| Cancun | Included | No | From $130 | |
| Cancun Hotel Zone | Included | No | From $321 | |
| Cancún | Included | No | From $194 | |
| Isla Mujeres | Included | Yes | From $660 | |
| Cancún Hotel Zone | Included | Yes | From $402 | |
| Cancún | Included | Yes | From $301 | |
| Punta Sam | Included | No | From $252 | |
| Isla Mujeres | Included | No | From $186 | |
| Cancún | Included | No | From $228 | |
| Cancún | Included | No | From $637 | |
| Cancún | Included | No | From $67 | |
| Cancun | Included | Yes | From $183 | |
| Cancún | Included | Yes | From $143 | |
| Cancun | Included | Yes | From $159 | |
| Costa Mujeres | Included | Yes | From $317 | |
| Cancun | Included | Yes | From $168 | |
| Punta Sam / Cancún | Included | No | From $199 |
A few points that change how the coast reads.
Effectively, yes. INFRATUR, an agency of the Bank of Mexico, modelled roughly ten thousand kilometres of Mexican coastline on criteria including climate, beach quality, hurricane exposure, accessibility, nearby attractions, available land and regional need. Officials visited the sites the model favoured, and Cancún came out on top. It was approved in 1969.
Not really. Isla Cancún was a barrier island of dunes, mangrove and marsh, with Maya ruins on it and only a few hundred people in the wider area. The nearby settlement of Puerto Juárez existed, but modern Cancún was built from close to nothing, deliberately, as a national development project.
The etymology is debated, but it is generally traced to Yucatec Maya words involving a snake and coiling or abundance, giving readings like nest of snakes or place of snakes. The island itself curves like one, and the Hotel Zone's main road is named for Kukulcán, the feathered serpent.
Usually given as Playa Blanca, about 72 rooms, opened in 1974 by Diego de la Peña. It later became Blue Bay Village, then Blue Bay Getaway, and today it is Temptation Cancún. Several hotels opened that same year, so the honour is a little contested.
The sand is natural carbonate from the reef, but much of the beach in front of the Hotel Zone has been rebuilt. A barrier island loses and moves sand constantly, and after Hurricane Wilma in 2005 millions of cubic metres were dredged from offshore and pumped back along about eight miles of shore. It is maintained the way a road is resurfaced.
