Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, Mexico - In the first quarter of 2019, more than 597,000 international passengers arrived at the Licenciado Gustavo Diaz Ordaz International Airport in Puerto Vallarta (PVR), which places the air terminal as the third busiest in the country for foreign visitor arrivals.

According to the Ministry of Tourism (Sectur), passenger traffic at the Puerto Vallarta airport was only surpassed by Mexico City and Cancun. After being ranked as the country's fourth busiest airport for four years, international arrivals to PVR are on the rise, as evidenced by the 2.6% increase in foreign visitors between January and March over the same period of the previous year.

Those who visit Puerto Vallarta stay for an average of 4 days. However, those who travel south from the PVR international airport to the Costa Alegre vacation for an average of 11 days, Sectur's report said.

Meanwhile, the cruise market continues to strengthen. During the first three months of 2019, more than 150,000 passengers arrived in Puerto Vallarta on a cruise. This s a 23 percent increase over the number of people who arrived by sea in the same period of 2018.

Although the Guadalajara Airport continues to be one of the main air destinations in the country, it saw a 0.9% decrease in the number of foreign visitors in the first quarter of 2019 compared to the same period in 2018, registering just 243,474 arrivals this year.

The Jalisco Secretariat of Tourism (Secturjal) detailed that most international visitors to Puerto Vallarta and the Metropolitan Zone of Guadalajara (ZMG) are, in their majority, Americans between the ages of 26 and 44 who come for family vacations, followed by Canadians, who also travel accompanied by their families.