The history of hotels in Los Cabos — From 0 rooms to over 18,000

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Los Cabos’ beginnings arsenic a tourer destination successful the 1950s were exceedingly modest, truthful overmuch truthful that the sanction Los Cabos wouldn’t adjacent beryllium coined for different 30 years. In 1951, erstwhile Carmen Fisher opened the Casa Fisher guesthouse successful San José del Cabo, the colonisation of that municipality was a fewer thousand, portion cape sister Cabo San Lucas boasted a colonisation of lone 300.

By the mid-1950s, her rooms were mostly rented to the radical gathering Hotel Las Cruces Palmilla, conscionable extracurricular San José connected a formation wherever cattle were inactive loaded onto offshore ships. The edifice would yet go iconic arsenic One&Only Palmilla but successful its aboriginal days, the spot opened successful 1956 by Abelardo “Rod” Rodriguez Jr. and woman Lucille Bremer was thing but prepossessing.

An aerial presumption of Los Cabos successful Mexico

“For Christ’s sake, that’s a boarding house, not a hotel!” quipped Conrad Hilton to Los Cabos pioneer edifice builder Luis Cóppola connected the taxable of Hotel Palmilla’s 15-room inventory. Of course, it bears noting that Hilton was a impermanent successful the edifice astatine the time, joining different well-known names among Palmilla’s tiny but celebrity-rich clientele. It didn’t wounded that Rodriguez was the lad of a erstwhile president of Mexico and Bremer was a erstwhile histrion who had erstwhile shared surface clip with Fred Astaire.

The pioneer property of Los Cabos tourism

Most Los Cabos hotels until the aboriginal 1970s, 2 decades into the destination’s development, had nary much than 2 twelve oregon truthful rooms each.

“Everyone thought we were brainsick due to the fact that we were the archetypal ones to commencement with much than 20 rooms,” remembered Cóppola’s son, Luis Cóppola Jr. successful Baja Explorer astir the opening of the Hotel Finsterra successful 1972. “They astir apt weren’t incorrect due to the fact that we suffered for 10 years. For 10 years determination was nary highway. The roadworthy seldom brought tourists down here. We didn’t person a large airport. We had to bring our radical from La Paz successful tiny craft arsenic did everybody else.”

Finisterra wasn’t really the archetypal edifice successful Los Cabos with much than 20 rooms. For example, the landmark Hotel Cabo San Lucas that Bud Parr and Cóppola built adjacent Chileno Bay successful 1961 had 62 rooms completed erstwhile Sports Illustrated visited for its 2nd yearly Swimsuit Issue successful 1965.

But Cóppola Jr.’s constituent was correct. Because of the difficulties of getting hotels built — Bud Parr and Cóppola had to alert successful equipment, supplies, and manpower from the Mexican mainland to decorativeness the Hotel Cabo San Lucas — and the deficiency of casual accessibility to Southern Baja, tourism was highly small-scale. It was lone aft the Transpeninsular Highway was completed successful 1973 and the Los Cabos International Airport opened successful San José del Cabo successful 1977 that Los Cabos was acceptable for large-scale tourism. Even then, it wasn’t until a US $44 cardinal makeover successful 1992 that the planetary airdrome could grip DC-10s and 747s.

By then, Los Cabos had grown its edifice inventory to 2,600 rooms acknowledgment to each the important pioneer hotels built successful erstwhile decades, including the Hotel Hacienda (1963), Hotel Mar de Cortés (1972), and Hotel Solmar (1974) successful Cabo San Lucas, the Twin Dolphin (1977) successful the Tourist Corridor, and Hotel El Presidente (1981) and the Tropicana Inn (1985) successful San José del Cabo.

Big-name brands travel to Los Cabos

The 1990s was the decennary of accelerated enlargement successful Los Cabos. Between 1980 and 1997, Baja California Sur much than doubled its disposable edifice rooms, from 3,581 to 7,829. Much of that detonation occurred successful Los Cabos, which started the 1990s with a small implicit 2,000 edifice rooms and a mission, per FONATUR, Mexico’s tourism improvement agency, to deed 8,000 by 2000.

Conrad Hilton, who had scoffed astatine Los Cabos’ quality to big a Hilton successful earlier decades, broke crushed connected what would go the Hilton Los Cabos (2002) successful the aboriginal 1990s. Other large hospitality brands were already building. The Westin Regina Los Cabos, with its spectacular arch-like Sordo Madaleno architecture, premiered successful 1993. The Hacienda del Mar followed successful 1996, receiving the Sheraton imprimatur successful 1999.

Mexican-owned Pueblo Bonito opened its archetypal 2 resorts, Blanco and Rosé, successful the 1990s. San José del Cabo saw the commencement of 2 iconic downtown hotels: El Encanto Inn (1998) and Casa Natalia (1999).

The emergence of the luxury edifice successful Los Cabos

Las Ventanas al Paraiso, A Rosewood Resort, a luxury edifice successful Los Cabos

Las Ventanas al Paraíso, a Rosewood Resort, was the astir influential Los Cabos edifice to unfastened in the 1990s. Managed by hotelier Edward Steiner, it was the archetypal existent luxury resort to unfastened successful the area. One&Only Palmilla rebooted the aged Hotel Las Cruces Palmilla, owned aft Rodriguez by Don Koll, who brought Jack Nicklaus to Los Cabos to physique two signature play courses (Palmilla and the Cabo del Sol Ocean Course). When One&Only began to negociate Palmilla successful 2004, they expanded the country inventory, added a 25,000-square-foot spa, and brought the archetypal personage cook (Charlie Trotter) to Los Cabos.

More resorts opened successful the 2000s, including Esperanza, Auberge Resorts Collection (2002), Marquis Los Cabos (2003), Casa del Mar (2004), Pueblo Bonito’s Sunset Beach (2005), Dreams Los Cabos (2007), and Capella Pedregal (2009). By 2015, Los Cabos had grown to 63 hotels featuring 12,981 rooms, blowing by FONATUR’s archetypal projection of 12,000 rooms arsenic the eventual extremity for the destination. Building intensified aft Hurricane Odile successful 2014, with The Cape, A Thompson Hotel (2015), Breathless (2016), Grand Velas (2016), Chileno Bay Resort (2017), Garza Blanca (2017), Le Blanc (2018), and Montage (2018) each opening betwixt 2015 and 2020.

Many of these were (and inactive are) luxurious. However, it helped that luxury standard-bearers similar Four Seasons (the Four Seasons Resort Los Cabos astatine Costa Palmas premiered successful 2019, the Four Seasons Resort astatine Cabo del Sol successful 2024); Ritz-Carlton (Zadún, A Ritz-Carlton Reserve opened successful 2019); and Waldorf Astoria (which took implicit The Resort astatine Pedregal, formerly Capella Pedregal, successful 2019) besides bought into Los Cabos arsenic a world-class luxury destination.

Hotels and resorts successful Los Cabos today

The hotels and resorts I’ve mentioned aren’t each the ones that person opened oregon are unfastened contiguous successful Los Cabos arsenic determination are presently astir 18,000 edifice rooms (down from the all-time precocious of 22,213 successful March 2022), with astir fractional (9,199) successful Cabo San Lucas, implicit 4,000 successful the Tourist Corridor, and implicit 3,400 successful San José del Cabo. If past has taught america anything, much are connected the way.

On that note, respective new hotels and resorts are projected to unfastened successful the adjacent fewer years, adding astir 700 caller rooms.

Chris Sands is the Cabo San Lucas section adept for the USA Today question website 10 Best, writer of Fodor’s Los Cabos question guidebook and a contributor to galore websites and publications, including Tasting Table, Marriott Bonvoy Traveler, Forbes Travel Guide, Porthole Cruise, Cabo Living and Mexico News Daily. His specialty is travel-related contented and manner features focused connected food, vino and golf.

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