Here Comes the Sun — and Travel Chaos. Cancun Changes Time Zone
By the beach in Cancun, which is shifting to a new time zone (Photo: Thinkstock)
As if Cancun weren’t sunny enough. The Mexican state of Quintana Roo has just announced that it’s changing its time zone so that tourists in the popular beach destination can take advantage of an extra hour of sunshine.
Quintana Roo will set its clocks ahead one hour, officially changing its time zone from Central Standard Time (CST) to Eastern Standard Time (EST), meaning that there’ll be that much time to linger over your margarita at Señor Frogs.
The change goes into effect at 2 a.m. on February 1, when the area will “spring forward” an hour and stay that way the rest of the year, even when the rest of the country goes into Mexican Daylight Saving Time, starting April 5.
Besides Cancun, the time zone will shift throughout the white sand-fringed Mayan Riviera and popular tourism destinations like Tulum.
The change was approved by the Mexican government, after two years of lobbying from several hotel owners in Cancun and the state government. “Cancun is excited to welcome this time change, which will allow our visitors to take advantage of one more hour in our beautiful destination,” said Jesus Almaguer, CEO of the Cancun CVB. “The added sunlight should also generate reductions in electricity use for hotels and restaurants in the area.”
Related: Mexico Smackdown: Los Cabos vs. Cancún and Riviera Maya
An aerial view of Cancun (Photo: Thinkstock)
But it’s not a welcome change for everyone.
“It’s throwing us into a tizzy — flight changes, transfer changes,” Jack Ezon, president of Ovation Vacations, told Yahoo Travel. “We have a sunset wedding on February 24 for 400 people, and the whole day has to change. Nuts!”
It’s also going to present a hardship for some people working in Mexico. Frosch travel advisor Ben Gritzewsky, who lives in neighboring Merida, told Travel Pulse: “The change will likely complicate things for those of us in the industry actually based on the Yucatan Peninsula, who already struggle with the multiple time zones and schedules of the incoming markets. Currently, we are all on the same time with central Mexico, including Mexico City, the epicenter of government and the economy.“
Aviation blogger Bill Owen, says it’s a rare move: “Changing time zones for an airport or a state is highly unusual anywhere on the planet — I can only recall it happening a couple of times in my 37 years in the airline industry.”
Related: Cancún Has Culture? Discover the Surprisingly Sophisticated Side of this Mexico Mainstay
Here comes the sun. (Photo: Thinkstock)
The sun currently rises in Cancun at around 6:40 a.m., and sets at around 5:30 p.m.. And as Owen argues, it’ll probably go unnoticed by many: “Really, who is up in Cancun at 6:40 a.m.?” The change will shift sunrise to around 7:40 a.m. and sunset to around 6:30 p.m.
Another hidden benefit, according to Lourdes Perez, account executive for Newlink Communcations, which does public relations for the region, is that the change will “strengthen the destination’s competitiveness with other popular tourism destinations that run on EST.”
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