Riviera Nayarit, Mexico - Canadians continue to sing the praises of Riviera Nayarit, giving the destination an impressive satisfaction score of 9.3 in July.

In fact, the entire summer season has been particularly strong for the vacation hotspot, with a total of 87.43% in hotel occupancy and an influx of more than 218,000 tourists, both domestic and foreign, in July. Expectations for August are equally high with an occupancy of 86.17% and the number of visitors through Aug. 18 reaching 305,813 – already exceeding the 276,284 visitors in the same period in 2016.

Marc Murphy, director general of the Riviera Nayarit Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB), pointed out that the 'offseason' no longer exists in the destination as it did 15 years ago; now there are only high and medium seasons.

"The constant training of travel agents and meeting planners, as well as the implementation of Promotion, Public Relations and Marketing strategies continue to bring positive results. With an increase in the number of visitors and high occupancy levels in the year to date, we expect an even better outcome this winter," he said.

Per the CVB's Barometer survey and analysis for the period of January to July 2017, the results show that the average hotel occupancy in the destination during these first seven months was 80.5%. Regarding overnight tourists during the period, the Barometer shows a total of 1,399,498 compared to the 1,230,704 that was registered for the same period in 2016 – representing an increase of 13.7%. The total number of occupied rooms in January – July 2017 was 7,019,926.

Other destination milestones between July 2016 and July 2017 include:

• An increase in international travellers from 53,767 to 67,525
• International tourists per night are also up from 262,132 to 425,479
• The total monthly tourism revenue rose from US$161,555,762 to US$1,722,146,711.08
• An average nightly room rate increase of 2.7%
• Average Canadian visitor expenditure increased from US$1,306.84 to $1,457.66, an increase in Canadian dollars from Can$1,620.02 to $1,807.09