Some of the more entrepreneurial tour operators in Mexico have found a way to increase their income while providing travelers with unique travel experiences.
Rather than simply taking people on hotel-based tours, growing numbers of tour operators are finding it worthwhile to develop and market their own accommodations in the form of glamping resorts, said Miguel Huerta, president of the Mexican Glamping Association.
Huerta’s company, Tlaxcala-based Nantli Living, is a case in point. Since 2020, Nantli Living has opened four glamping resorts in the Mexican states of Tlaxcala, Guanajuato and Nuevo Leon. The company expects to open its fifth glamping resort in December or January near Cuernavaca in the state of Morelos.
Nantli Living’s resorts include:
- Glamping Amate: The Bubble Hotel in Huamantla, Tlaxcala: This resort, which opened in 2020, is comprised of furnished bubble tents. Amenities include an onsite restaurant, a display of Indigenous Huamantleco art, a store featuring regional contemporary arts and crafts, as well as a variety of tours that include everything from rappelling in nearby mountains to touring historic churches and exploring the wonders of Malinche National Park, including its 17th-century aqueduct.
- Glamping Octli: The Firefly Sanctuary in Nanacamilpa, Tlaxcala: This resort, which opened in 2021, is comprised of furnished canvas tents on wooden platforms. Guests can enjoy an onsite restaurant with local food and beverages such as pulque, a pre-Hispanic drink, and Mexican kombucha, a ginger-based drink, as well as a temazcal, a heated dome-shaped structure that provides health and therapeutic benefits. Tour offerings include mushroom hunting, a visit to the firefly sanctuary and balloon flights.
- Nomada Glamping San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato: This resort, which opened in 2023, is comprised of furnished canvas glamping tents. Onsite amenities include natural hot springs, craft beer and wine tastings, romantic dinners, a coffee bar and tours of local historical sites.
- Campizo Glamping Monterrey in Allende, Nuevo Leon: This resort, which opened in late 2023, features furnished canvas glamping tents on elevated wooden platforms. Amenities include wine tastings, cheese platters, and hiking tours.
Huerta said each resort serves as a unique base camp for a variety of cultural, historic and outdoor adventure tours of their local areas.
“I think that the architecture (of each resort’s glamping units) by itself is an experience,” he said, adding that the gourmet food offerings complement the other unique experiences at each resort.
Mexicans, Huerta said, want to enjoy unique experiences just like their fellow travelers in the U.S., and they’re willing to pay for it.
“I think that consumers will pay a little more for something that is not as common as all the franchise hotels and Airbnbs,” he said.
Other tour operators that have developed their own glamping resorts include Rodavento and Expediciones Mexico Verde, both of which have built luxurious glamping resorts in sought-after destinations across Mexico.
Huerta said most of Mexico’s glamping resorts are located within a two-hour drive of a major city.
Mexico currently has more than 180 glamping resorts, most with furnished canvas tents and/or domes, and most of which are within a two-hour drive of a major city.
“Right now, the glamping sites around Mexico City are the top performing and most popular glamping sites in Mexico,” Huerta said, adding that Mexicans account for more than 95% of the country’s glamping guests.
That, of course, means that there is tremendous potential to market Mexico’s glamping resorts to an international clientele, said Huerta, who attended the The Glamping Show Americas‘ seventh annual conference and tradeshow in Aurora, Colo. in early October. Huerta said he attended the conference to network with new people coming into the glamping industry, including international wholesalers as well as other Latinos who are part of the glamping industry.
Huerta told Woodall’s Campground Magazine that Mexicans use a variety of online tools to book their reservations at glamping resorts. He said Mexicans typically use WhatsApp to make about 85% of their bookings for Nantli Living, but that number goes down to around 65% for bookings at other Mexican glamping resort properties.
Online booking platforms that are widely known in the U.S., such as Glampinghub.com, Booking.com, Airbnb.com and Expedia.com, account for about 10% of Nantli Living bookings and about 30% for other Mexican glamping resort properties.
About 5% of Nantli Resort’s bookings are made directly through the websites of its resorts.
Looking ahead to 2025, however, Huerta sees demand for glamping experiences in Mexico continuing to increase. If the economy goes into a downturn, he also sees affluent Mexicans gravitating to the country’s glamping resorts rather than traveling overseas. Mexico’s glamping resorts, he added, also have the advantage of being open year-round.
“In the United States, because of the harsh weather, there are some places that are only open part of the year. Here in Mexico, you can go glamping all year long,” Huerta said.
