How Los Cabos handles Semana Santa, its busiest week of the year

The 2 biggest weeks of the twelvemonth successful presumption of tourism successful Baja California Sur are associated with holidays: Christmas and Semana Santa, the second being Holy Week, which leads up to Easter Sunday.

Semana Santa is peculiarly notable for the precocious visitant numbers and elevated edifice occupancy figures but besides due to the fact that truthful galore much Mexican tourists typically program formation holidays during this period.

For Semana Santa, Baja California Sur’s authorities has drafted assistance from a wide swath of resources, including the Mexican military, nonprofit organizations, section authorities and much to assistance vacationing visitors this week. (State of Baja California Sur government)

“During Holy Week, we spot an summation successful home tourism — though it doesn’t surpass planetary tourism. But we’ll beryllium managing, for example, a 60-40 ratio: 60% planetary tourism, 40% home tourism,” Lilzi Orcí, Executive President of the Los Cabos Hotel Association, told Meganoticias.

“We person a batch of determination tourists, that is, from BCS, during this season. They besides travel from Mexico City, Monterrey, Guadalajara — and immoderate from the Bajío.”

How galore radical sojourn during Semana Santa?

In 2025, astir 94,000 tourists were expected to cheque into statewide hotels during Holy Week, portion galore times that fig were projected to bask determination beaches (113,000 successful Los Cabos alone, according to authoritative estimates). Naturally, having truthful galore radical sojourn during immoderate fixed week puts further unit connected determination authorities to guarantee the beaches and h2o are cleanable and welcoming and that different signature attractions astir the authorities are acceptable to grip much postulation than usual. 

With that successful mind, here’s a look astatine immoderate of the readying and preparations this twelvemonth and the expectations regarding visitation, edifice occupancy, and economical interaction during 1 of, if not the, biggest week of the twelvemonth (since last numbers person not yet been announced).

Safety and information measures 

In Los Cabos, and successful different abrogation spots passim the state, the authorities has placed assistance stations astatine beaches for accelerated effect to visitant needs and emergencies. (Government of Baja California Sur)

In Los Cabos, much than 1,700 unit and 250 units were tasked with being portion of Semana Santa Segura 2025, an inaugural to guarantee the information of each those visiting during Holy Week. If that seems similar a lot, see the crushed they had to cover: 65 beaches crossed 190 kilometers of coastline.

“There volition beryllium 7 surveillance, information and archetypal assistance stations connected highways; 8 surveillance and archetypal assistance stations connected beaches; and 36 agencies from the 3 levels of government, institutions and organizations from the public, backstage and societal sectors, who volition transportation retired coordinated work,” confirmed Francisco Cota Márquez, Municipal Director of Civil Protection of Los Cabos, per Tribuna de Mexico.

Making definite beaches and h2o were of optimal quality

Federal officials person asked the nationalist this twelvemonth for assistance keeping determination beaches clean, an ongoing contented owed to the tremendous quantities of trash often near behind. Last year, Los Cabos cleaned up much than 70 tons of trash near connected country beaches during Semana Santa. 

To guarantee optimal sanitary conditions astatine section beaches for the influx of visitors this year, the Federal Commission for Protection against Health Risks (COEPRIS) tested the h2o astatine 39 determination beaches — those expecting the highest turnouts, people — for immoderate bacterial contamination. 

Fortunately, each those tested got a cleanable measure of health. The World Health Organization has established acceptable levels of enterococci, a bacteria whose comparative beingness is utilized to gauge wide h2o quality. Samples of sandy stretches from BCS beaches were besides tested astatine determination laboratories and came backmost 20 times cleaner than was indispensable to person the “optimal” designation. 

Playa Balandra volition support the aforesaid hours during Semana Santa

Of each the determination beaches successful BCS, nary is arsenic beauteous oregon hard to sojourn arsenic Playa Balandra successful La Paz. That’s due to the fact that it’s present a protected area, and entree is constricted to 450 visitors during 2 regular periods (8 americium to noon oregon 1 p.m. to 5 pm). Locals get successful free, but visitors indispensable acquisition an electronic bracelet for 120 pesos.

Those hours and rules remained the aforesaid during Semana Santa, but arsenic always, each the different beauteous beaches successful the La Paz municipality were escaped and offered unlimited access.

How edifice occupancy spikes during Semana Santa

The occupancy level astatine the state’s 499 hotels volition alteration this year. In Los Cabos, for example, it was expected to deed 90%, with robust rates too. 

Los Cabos’ hoteliers are expecting their resorts to person been 90% filled this week. (Lester Balajadia/Shutterstock)

“We are expecting a complaint of US $515, which provides an fantabulous economical interaction during this season,” Orcí said the week earlier Semana Santa. “The full fig of rooms we person arsenic a Hotel Association is 19,500, and our tourer density per country is 2.4, which inactive gives america a projection of however galore tourists we volition person per time during this vacation period. The complaint we are managing is $20 higher than past year.”

But arsenic bully arsenic 90% sounds, it’s not arsenic bully arsenic the 95% occupancy expected successful Mulegé. Other determination destinations were anticipating numbers that weren’t rather that robust but expected them to beryllium above, often good above, the mean edifice occupancy successful Mexico (60%). Comondu, for instance, was booked this twelvemonth astatine 84% of edifice capacity, Loreto astatine 75% and La Paz astatine 65%.

The statewide fig is apt person to the Los Cabos fig since the southernmost municipality hosts easy the astir edifice rooms: 19,500 of 28,651 successful BCS, oregon 68%.

Celebrating a memorable infinitesimal successful determination history

The Western Flyer was the vessel utilized by Nobel Prize-winning writer John Steinbeck and his person Ed Ricketts to research the Gulf of California successful 1940. (Western Flyer Foundation)

The “Log from the Sea of Cortez” by John Steinbeck is possibly the best-known publication ever written astir the Baja California Peninsula, adjacent though it’s lone an abridged mentation of an earlier work: “Sea of Cortez: A Leisurely Journal of Travel and Research.”

“The Log” keeps Steinbeck’s communicative observations but jettisons astir of the notes connected specimen collecting and marine biology that were the premier motivators of the six-week expedition undertaken by Steinbeck and his person Ed Ricketts — the inspiration for the quality Doc successful Cannery Row — aboard the Western Flyer successful 1940. 

Steinbeck and Ricketts person agelong since passed away, but amazingly, the Western Flyer, a 77-foot purse seiner, is inactive around. She arrived successful La Paz connected Sunday, April 13, the commencement of Semana Santa, and was displayed to the nationalist astatine the Muelle Fiscal arsenic portion of festivities celebrating the 85th day of the legendary voyage.