By Fernanda Noriega
San Miguel has long been a World Heritage City and a World Class tourist destination. According to numbers generated by the Guanajuato State Tourism Office, from January 2020 to January 2021, 723,000 tourists arrived in our fair city. This earned San Miguel the title of «the best city to visit» for the third time in a row. Maintaining this elite status during a world-wide pandemic has not been easy. San Miguel has had to relax health protocols in order for the tourism industry to prosper, and for the tourism workers to make a decent living.
During this period of time (2020-2021), the impact of tourism on the San Miguel economy amounted to 2,837 million pesos. Thirty-three percent of tourists stayed in a hotel with one to five stars, with an average daily expenditure of 2,134 pesos, and a stay of 1.32 days. Twelve percent stayed in a rental house, with a daily expenditure of 1,721 pesos and an average stay of 5.94 days. Currently, thanks to the fact that the health traffic light has remained green, these numbers were close to doubling during the period from January 2022 to date.
