Miguel Torruco se reune con el Presidente de Iberia para fortalecer Conectividad de México con España

• The Secretary of Tourism of the Government of Mexico spoke with Luis Gallego about the increase in routes and frequencies to our country.

 

• For this airline, Mexico is its largest market in Latin America, with an offer of 662,000 seats between Madrid and CDMX.

 

• The head of Sectur explained the tax incentives we have to attract Spanish investment.

• Likewise, he met with the director of «Viva México», a specialized tour operator in our country, to design strategies that increase the flow of Italian tourists.

 

During his last day of work at the International Tourism Fair of Spain (Fitur), the Secretary of Tourism of the Government of Mexico, Miguel Torruco Marqués, met with the president of Iberia, Luis Gallego, with whom he discussed the increase in routes and frequencies of this airline to our country.

The head of the Ministry of Tourism stated that the main objective of this meeting was to strengthen the connectivity between Mexico and Spain, since in 2018 the arrival of Spanish citizens to Mexican territory occupied the seventh position of the total number of tourists who arrived in our country, registering a growth of 2.4 percent with respect to the previous year.

 

For Iberia, Mexico is its largest market in Latin America. According to information from the airline, last year its offer exceeded 662 thousand seats, 6.5 percent more than in 2018, with passenger growth of 9.3 percent.

 

Currently, during the summer it offers two daily flights between Madrid and Mexico City, although they have come to operate up to three direct frequencies a day.

 

Iberia also presents Mexicans with more than one hundred destinations in Europe, Africa and Asia; while it has also grown in Mexico where, through an alliance with Interjet, it offers more than thirty destinations in the country that connect with its flights from Madrid.

 

Gallego stated that Iberia has always tried to accompany migratory movements in both directions, as well as investment flows that have generated wealth and allowed the internationalization of many Spanish companies; and also to tourism, which is a great engine of the economy.

 

For his part, Secretary Torruco Marqués highlighted the importance of the Spanish presence in the Mexican tourism industry, where it has invested mainly in the hotel sector. Currently, the destinations that concentrate these capitals are: Cancun, where they have 7,820 rooms; Riviera Maya, with 1,882; Isla Mujeres, with 1,148; Los Cabos, with 1,882; Nuevo Vallarta, with 1,145; Mazatlan, with 716; and Cozumel, with 540 rooms.

 

He added that in 2018 Spanish investment in activities related to tourism in Mexico reached 213 million dollars; while in the first nine months of last year it added 151 million dollars, positioning that nation as the second with the highest tourism investments in our country in the last 20 years.

 

He specified that between 1999 and until September 2019, the accumulated tourist investment of the United States is 14 thousand 30 million dollars, which places it in the first position, followed by Spain with 1,935 million; Canada, with 1,716 million; France, with 730 million; and the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland with 523 million dollars.

 

The head of Sectur explained that to encourage Spanish investment in tourism in our country, the Mexican government has specific plans and incentives, such as immediate tax deduction programs and federal tax incentives for the acquisition of new fixed assets for companies who does not have established permanence in the country. The accreditation of the Value Added Tax (VAT) is one hundred percent deductible and the Income Tax (ISR) is applied in specific percentages.

 

Regarding the banks that support tourism investments in Mexico, they have the support of the Banco Nacional de Comercio Exterior and Nacional Financiera, with whom the Ministry of Tourism recently signed a collaboration agreement with the aim of establishing the bases for both institutions jointly design and put into operation specialized financial programs and products aimed at satisfying the needs of the companies that participate in this sector, considering size, product line, demand segment, destination and region.

 

He argued that last year both financial organizations granted loans for 14 thousand 770 million pesos to more than two thousand micro, small, medium and large companies. This amount of money was 8.4 percent higher than what was lent in 2018.

 

Regarding tax incentives, the Mexican government presented in January 2019 the Fiscal Program for the Border Area with the United States, which has benefited six states of the country with the reduction of VAT, from 16 to eight percent; and the ISR, which went from thirty to twenty percent, which has encouraged investment in this entire border strip.

 

Finally, Secretary Torruco Marqués recalled that the governments of Mexico and Spain have signed 27 bilateral agreements for different areas, several of which refer to the tourism sector and are in force.

 

Among these are the Tourism Cooperation Agreement, signed in 1996; that of Economic and Financial Cooperation (1998); the Agreement for the Promotion and Reciprocal Protection of Investments (2016); and the Agreement on Air Transport (2017).

 

On the other hand, the head of Sectur also gave press interviews and, to end the work tour, he met with Marco Guiducci, director of «Viva México», an Italian tour operator specializing in our country, with whom he talked about the implementation of Strategies to grow the flow of tourists from Italy to Mexican destinations.

 

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