Mazatlan’s Growth: A Top Destination for Canadian Tourists

Canadians have always loved Mexico and now the country is seeing a 16.5% growth over 2024 as we shift destination choices away from the U.S. due to political and economic concerns.

Mazatlan, located on the Pacific Coast in the Sinaloa state, is seeing a good portion of that increase. In 2024, Mazatlan received 1.9 million passengers and 227,000 cruise ship passengers, generating over $355 million pesos (roughly $24M CDN) for the local economy.

Travel Market Report Canada spoke with Mireya Sosa Osuna, Secretary of Tourism of the State of Sinaloa Tuesday afternoon from Calgary where she was attending a series of Western Canada advisor events. The popular events were their largest ever in Canada and were fully booked within two hours of the invite going out; a sure sign of demand for the destination.

“We love you, and Canadians love Mazatlan,” Osuna tells us. “That’s why this year, we came earlier to promote our destination because our flights are starting earlier, they’ve done so well at 95% occupancy. We’re working to have them become year-round service for next year.”

Getting to Mazatlan from Canada is easy with nine routes this year from Toronto, Montreal, Saskatoon, Regina, Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver, and a new WestJet flight from Kelowna.

“We also have residents in Canada that live six months in Canada, six months here,” she says. “They love the weather. They are like locals, they love it, and we love them; I think we are almost like sister countries, just because we have so many Canadians.”

Mazatlan is home to 14,000 rooms at 195 hotels, the newest will be a 170-room REVERB by Hard Rock which is scheduled to open in June 2028. Attraction wise, there are many for travellers of all interests including the new “Farolesa,” the longest zipline above the sea in Mexico and the 5^th largest in Latin America, reaching speeds of 70-100km/hr. There’s also the Grand Aquarium of the Sea of Cortez – largest one in Latin America, the National Whale Museum, the longest Boardwalk in Latin America, and the Colonial towns of El Quelite, La Noria, Concordia, Copala.

We wondered about that pesky, confusing tourist tax that other states in Mexico are talking about.

“Every state has its own laws and some are implementing the tax and I understand their reasons why,” she says. “But in Mazatlan, we aren’t doing any more taxes for visitors or Sinaloa citizens. We are not having an additional tax in Sinaloa.”

Perhaps above all else, Osuna wants to remind advisors that Mazatlan is a safe and welcoming destination for Canadians.

“We know how important it is for travel advisors and for anyone going to a country to be concerned about safety, and we’re sensitive and aware of that. All our hotels and beaches are carefully monitored; we feel that responsibility and we take care of it. We have a little bit of everything and something for everyone.

We invite you all to come.”