Mexico’s oceanside resorts and Maya ruins are luring more visitors from abroad even as violence plagues some parts of the country. The resurgence is spurring a wave of new investment by some of the biggest names in the hotel industry.

Hoteliers and investors are counting on a continued surge in tourism across Mexico, where gains in hotel room rates outpaced increases in the rest of Latin America even as the economy slowed this year. Travel growth is being driven by a rising middle class, expansion by business, and visitors undeterred by the violence in northern Mexico.

"Security issues — perceived or real — travelers pay attention to, and they can impact travel," Ricardo Suárez, vice president of acquisitions at Stamford, Connecticut-based Starwood Hotels, said. "But there is such strong economic growth in Mexico, it’s driving domestic travel and demand from the US and, more recently, also from places like Europe, Russia, and Asia."

Hotel-room bookings for this year jumped 11 percent in July, compared with a 6 percent increase a year earlier, according to travel-services company Orbitz Worldwide Inc. Growth in bookings in the Caribbean, Central America, and South America, meanwhile, is slowing, according to the Chicago-based organization.

Hotel demand in Mexico is increasingly coming from places not traditionally associated with travel to the country. Tourists from China are almost as numerous at Starwood’s Latin America properties as those with a longer history of visiting the region, including Germans, Italians, and the French, Suárez said.

International visitors arriving in Mexico by plane rose 8.4 percent in the first seven months of 2013 from the year-earlier period, according to data from Mexico’s tourism ministry.

Arrivals from China jumped 29 percent, while visitors from Russia increased 56 percent during the same period, according to the data. US visitors made up 56 percent of total arrivals by air.

As travel demand has slowed in many parts of Latin America this year, "Mexico is helping mitigate some of this as it grows from increasing business activity as well as the return of the US vacationer," Starwood Hotels Chief Executive Officer Frits van Paasschen states.

In July, Hyatt announced plans to spend $325 million in partnership with Fairfax, Virginia-based Playa Hotels y Resorts on properties in Mexico, the Dominican Republic, and Jamaica. The first two Hyatt-branded resorts in the partnership will open in Mexico later this year after a "multimillion-dollar" investment.

Starwood, which has 24 hotels in Mexico, said in July that it expects to expand its portfolio in the country by 30 percent, with eight new hotels in its development pipeline. It’s planning an even bigger increase - by 50 percent - for its luxury properties, including its St. Regis and W brands, in the next three years.

New York-based MetLife Inc., the largest US life insurer, and Thayer Lodging Group bought the 365-room Hilton Los Cabos Beach and Golf Resort in Cabo San Lucas for an undisclosed price, the companies said last week. It was Annapolis, Maryland-based Thayer’s first investment outside the US.

Mexico’s economy has slowed and is expected to expand as little as 2 percent this year, half of 2012’s pace and the slowest growth in four years. Hotels are getting a boost from a bigger, more affluent middle class and manufacturing expansion by foreign companies.