Is Tulum too crowded with Airbnbs?

Why does Tulum feel so crowded with Airbnbs now?

Because rental supply kept growing after tourism stopped growing.

Tulum went through a huge condo-building cycle when developers could sell small apartments on a simple pitch: tourism is booming, the town is getting easier to reach, and Airbnb will pay for the condo.

The construction numbers show how far that went. An InfoHabitat analysis using Softec data found 1,466 homes under construction in Tulum in 2017. By 2023, it was 13,266.

Tourism then went the other way. Quintana Roo's tourism office counted 1.68 million tourists in Tulum in 2025, down 5.3% from 1.77 million in 2024.

Meanwhile, Airbnb supply was still rising. Airbtics counts 6,543 active listings in the 12 months to August 2026, 55.7% more than a year earlier.

Tulum still gets a lot of visitors. The problem is that they're now split across far more places to stay.

How many Airbnbs does Tulum actually have?

Several thousand, but there's no single reliable number.

AirROI counts 8,303 active Tulum listings in the 12 months to September 2026. Airbtics counts 6,543 to August 2026. AirDNA counts 3,608 active short-term rentals in September 2026.

The gap is big because they don't measure the same thing. AirDNA combines Airbnb, Vrbo and Booking.com, removes duplicates and uses its own definition of "active". AirROI and Airbtics track Airbnb only, with different boundaries and thresholds.

So don't trust anyone who quotes an exact number of Tulum Airbnbs. What matters is the scale: even the most conservative count is in the thousands.

AirROI's count for Tulum is higher than its count for Puerto Vallarta (6,975), a much bigger city. For a small resort town, that's a lot of competing supply.

Data provider	Latest Tulum count	Occupancy	What the figure covers
AirROI	8,303	30%	Airbnb only, 12 months to Sep. 2026
Airbtics	6,543	43%	Airbnb only, 12 months to Aug. 2026 (median occupancy)
AirDNA, Tulum	3,608	46%	Airbnb, Vrbo and Booking.com, de-duplicated, Sep. 2026
AirDNA, Greater Tulum	912	43%	Separate area around the town, Sep. 2026

Is Tulum's Airbnb market too big for a town its size?

Yes, it's very large compared with its hotel sector.

Quintana Roo's tourism office lists 239 hotels and 11,993 hotel rooms in Tulum as of December 2025.

Next to that, AirROI finds more than 8,300 active rentals, Airbtics more than 6,500 and AirDNA about 3,600.

A listing isn't a hotel room: a four-bedroom villa counts as one listing, a 100-room hotel as 100 rooms. Still, the comparison shows how much accommodation Tulum built outside the hotel business.

With AirROI's count, there are about seven active rentals for every ten hotel rooms. With Airbtics, about one for every two. Even with AirDNA, it's three for every ten.

And Tulum fills those rentals less well than other big markets. In AirDNA's data, which uses the same method everywhere, Tulum has the lowest occupancy of the big rental markets below.

Market (AirDNA)	Active listings, Sep. 2026	Change in a year	Occupancy
Mexico City	25,568	-27.8%	64%
Cancún	6,673	-51.7%	54%
Playa del Carmen	6,498	-60.2%	58%
Puerto Vallarta	5,943	-54.3%	57%
Tulum	3,608	-73.1%	46%

Did Airbnb supply grow faster than tourism in Tulum?

Yes, by a wide margin, and that's the clearest sign of oversupply.

Airbtics measured active listings up 55.7% in the year to August 2026, and up 106.5% over three years.

Tourists went the other way: Tulum went from 1,773,767 visitors in 2024 to 1,679,190 in 2025, according to Quintana Roo's tourism office.

The periods and methods aren't identical, so it's not an exact comparison. But the direction is clear: far more places to stay, fewer people to fill them.

Hotels added rooms too, from 11,882 in an official 2025 report to 11,993 in December 2025. Airbnb owners compete with both.

Tulum indicator	Earlier figure	Later figure	Change
Tourist arrivals (2024 to 2025)	1.77M	1.68M	-5.3%
Airbtics active listings, one year	~4,200	6,543	+55.7%
Airbtics active listings, three years	~3,170	6,543	+106.5%
Official hotel rooms	11,882	11,993	+0.9%

Are Tulum Airbnbs struggling to fill nights?

Yes. Whatever dataset you use, most nights stay empty.

AirROI puts average Tulum occupancy at 30% for the 12 months to September 2026: fewer than one night in three is booked.

Airbtics' median is higher at 43%, but it's down 10.4% in a year and 20.4% over three years, while listings more than doubled.

AirDNA shows 46%, up 17% in a year. Part of that is real: some listings left and the rest picked up their bookings. But it came with much lower nightly rates (see below).

The providers disagree on the number, not on the picture: none of them shows Tulum as a market where a typical rental fills most of its nights.

Are Tulum Airbnb hosts cutting prices to get bookings?

Yes. Hosts are trading lower prices for occupancy.

In AirDNA's Tulum data, occupancy rose to 46%, but the average nightly rate fell 23.6% in a year to $125.

RevPAR, which is revenue per available night, is still down 10.7% at $58. The extra bookings don't make up for the cheaper nights.

AirDNA's Greater Tulum area shows a milder version: nightly rates down 5.5% to $209, RevPAR up only 2.8% to $89.

Airbtics shows the median nightly rate up 6.4% to MXN 1,424 (about $77), yet median revenue still fell, because occupancy dropped.

These datasets cover different slices of the market, so don't mix their dollar figures. The common point: Tulum rentals struggle to turn their advertised rates into revenue.

Owners paying HOA fees, maintenance and management have every reason to discount rather than leave the unit empty, and guests have enough choice to shop around.

Is Tulum Airbnb revenue really recovering?

Not really. Some averages are up, but mostly because weaker listings dropped out.

AirDNA reports $17,400 of yearly revenue for the average active Tulum listing, up 60.5%.

That sounds great until you see that AirDNA's active-listing count fell 73.1% over the same period. Remove thousands of weak listings and the average of the rest goes up without a single extra tourist.

Airbtics, which tracks the median Airbnb, tells a different story: MXN 231,000 (about $12,400) over the 12 months to August 2026, down 3.7% in a year and 10.8% over three years.

AirROI's average is about MXN 254,000 (around $13,700) a year per listing.

So good operators still make money, but there's no market-wide recovery.

Provider	Yearly revenue per listing	Trend	Context
AirDNA, Tulum	$17.4K (average)	+60.5% in a year	Active listings down 73.1%
AirDNA, Greater Tulum	$27.2K (average)	+70.2% in a year	RevPAR only +2.8%
AirROI	MXN 254K (average)	12 months to Sep. 2026	Occupancy 30%
Airbtics	MXN 231K (median)	-3.7% in a year	-10.8% over three years

Is weaker tourism making Tulum's Airbnb problem worse?

Yes. Hotels are losing guests too, so it's not just bad hosting.

Tulum hotel occupancy fell from 73.8% in 2024 to 69.1% in 2025. In the first half of 2026, it averaged 66.18%, against 74.32% a year earlier.

That 8.13-point drop is far worse than Quintana Roo as a whole (-2.95 points) or Playa del Carmen (-4.47). From January to July 2026, Tulum averaged 63.69%, against 72.67%.

It got worse after the summer. In the week of September 19 to 25, 2026, Tulum hotels were 42.3% full, against 48.5% for the whole state, and five Tulum hotels had closed temporarily, according to state data reported by Por Esto!.

When hotels and Airbnbs both struggle to fill rooms, the problem is demand for Tulum itself.

Hotel market	First half 2025	First half 2026	Change
Tulum	74.32%	66.18%	-8.13 pts
Playa del Carmen	77.05%	72.58%	-4.47 pts
Riviera Maya	76.63%	72.77%	-3.87 pts
Quintana Roo overall	75.82%	72.87%	-2.95 pts

Is Tulum losing flights, and what does it mean for Airbnb owners?

Yes. Tulum's airport is losing passengers and airlines, so don't count on it to fill your calendar.

The airport was meant to fix Tulum's big weakness: a two-hour drive from Cancún. It did make Tulum easier to reach, and carried more than 1 million passengers in its first year.

But AFAC figures show about 471,500 passengers in the first half of 2026, down 33.2% from about 705,400 a year earlier. International traffic fell 40.8%, from 417,600 to 247,100. Domestic traffic fell 22%.

Airlines are now pulling out. Aeroméxico suspended its Tulum flights on September 30, 2026, Volaris stops flying there from January 7, 2027, and American Airlines is dropping Miami–Tulum while keeping Dallas. Bloomberg Intelligence, quoted by El Imparcial, expected seat capacity to Tulum to fall about 72% this quarter, part of it seasonal, against about 3% for Cancún.

Visitors can still fly into Cancún and drive down, so fewer airport passengers doesn't mean the same drop in tourists. But it does mean the "airport will fill the condos" pitch didn't happen. What to do: if you're buying, ask which routes still serve Tulum on the dates your guests would travel, and don't pay extra for "airport upside".

Did Tulum build too many condos for Airbnb investors?

Yes, far more than buyers and renters could absorb.

Softec data compiled by InfoHabitat shows homes under construction going from 1,466 in 2017 to 13,266 in 2023.

Available inventory reached 6,340 units in 2023, almost twice the 3,243 of 2019.

Then sales collapsed: 3,487 homes sold in 2023, only 1,711 in 2025, about half. Monthly sales per project fell from 1.4 units in 2022 to 0.9 in 2025.

Much of this was aimed at investors, sold with turnkey management and projected Airbnb returns. So every new project added more competition for the people who had already bought.

Housing indicator	Earlier level	Later level	Change
Homes under construction	1,466 in 2017	13,266 in 2023	~9x
Available inventory	3,243 in 2019	6,340 in 2023	+95%
Yearly home sales	3,487 in 2023	1,711 in 2025	-51%
Monthly sales per project	1.4 in 2022	0.9 in 2025	-36%

Are studios and one-bedrooms the most oversupplied part of Tulum?

Yes, generic studios and one-bedroom condos are the most crowded part of the market.

Tulum's chapter of AMPI, the local realtors' association, said the market had built up about five to six years of inventory in studios and one-bedroom apartments.

Those are the units developers could sell most easily as entry-level Airbnb investments, and they're hard to tell apart. Filter for two guests, a pool and air conditioning in La Veleta or Aldea Zama, and dozens of similar units show up at close prices.

A guest can switch over $10 or $20 a night, a weaker review score, a smaller pool or a bad road. A large villa near the beach competes in a much smaller pool.

AirROI's data shows it: one-bedroom entire homes average 31% occupancy and about MXN 113,000 (around $6,080) of revenue a year.

Does low season show how crowded Tulum's Airbnb market is?

Yes, low season is when the oversupply really bites.

In AirROI's monthly data, occupancy peaked at 42% in February 2026 and dropped to 27.8% in August. The average nightly rate went from about MXN 4,080 ($220) in January to MXN 2,890 ($155) in August.

Airbtics also calls Tulum a highly seasonal market, with demand peaking in January and weakest in May.

An owner who needs bookings to cover management, HOA fees, electricity and maintenance can't ignore quiet months, and thousands of owners face the same problem at the same time, which pushes more discounted units onto Airbnb.

So never judge a Tulum rental on January screenshots. Ask for 12 months of revenue and occupancy.

Can a really good Tulum Airbnb still beat the crowded market?

Yes, but the gap between winners and average units is huge.

An Airbtics comparison of similar one-bedroom rentals around Aldea Zama found occupancy ranging from about 28% to 70%. Same neighborhood, same type of unit.

In an earlier Airbtics benchmark of property managers, Vacation In Tulum's portfolio reached about 52% occupancy and MXN 383,000 a year per listing, against about 48% and MXN 235,000 for the wider market at the time. Top Rentals Mexico did much better again, with larger, pricier properties.

Location helps, but a fashionable neighborhood alone won't save a weak unit: Aldea Zama has both very full and very empty rentals.

A Tulum Airbnb that works today usually has several things at once: a good micro-location, strong reviews, professional pricing, good design and reliable water and power.

Is Tulum's Airbnb oversupply starting to clear?

A correction has started, but the oversupply hasn't cleared.

AirDNA's Tulum count is down 73.1% in a year and Greater Tulum is down 59.3%, while occupancy recovered to 46% and 43%.

Be careful with those drops. AirDNA's counts also fell 60.2% in Playa del Carmen, 51.7% in Cancún and 54.3% in Puerto Vallarta over the same year, so part of it is how AirDNA counts active listings. Meanwhile AirROI shows Tulum supply up 21% and Airbtics up 55.7%.

Some churn is real, though. Owners switch to monthly or long-term tenants, use the condo themselves, put it up for sale, or quit because the revenue doesn't cover the hassle. New registration rules (next section) may also push some off the platforms.

But the condos are still there. Many can come back onto Airbnb as soon as owners think things have improved, so a shrinking platform count doesn't remove the capacity that caused the problem.

Do you now need a licence to run an Airbnb in Tulum?

Yes. Quintana Roo requires state and municipal operating licences plus registration in RETUR-Q, the state tourism register, for every short-term rental.

The state also wants platforms to show only registered listings, and hosts need basic safety equipment: smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, a fire extinguisher and a first-aid kit. Fines for unregistered rentals can go above MXN 100,000 (about $5,380), according to Riviera Maya News.

On top of that, Airbnb collects Quintana Roo's 6% lodging tax from guests, which makes your nightly rate a bit less competitive against hotels.

What to do: before buying for Airbnb, ask whether the unit is already registered, read the condo rules (reglamento) on short-term rentals, check the project has valid permits (without them, a licence can be hard to get), and add licence and registration costs to your numbers.

Should you buy a Tulum condo for Airbnb right now?

Only if the price works without Airbnb. At today's asking prices, the numbers for a typical small condo are thin.

TuLugar's median asking price for a Tulum one-bedroom is $158,000 in October 2026. AirROI's average one-bedroom brings in about MXN 113,000 (around $6,080) a year. That's under 4% gross, before management, HOA fees of MXN 4,500 to 12,000 a month ($242 to $645) in beach-area buildings, electricity, maintenance, platform fees and taxes. A two-bedroom asking $267,000 against MXN 165,000 (about $8,870) of revenue does worse, around 3.3%.

A safer test is long-term rent. The median Tulum condo asks about $213,000 and the median condo rent is about $982 a month, about 5.5% gross. If a unit only makes sense on Airbnb, you're betting on a recovery nobody can see yet.

What to do: ask for 12 months of real booking statements (not projections), run your numbers at 30% to 46% occupancy and a lower nightly rate, avoid generic studios and one-bedrooms in La Veleta and Aldea Zama unless the price is low, and negotiate hard: sales have halved since 2023 and sellers know it.

So is Tulum too crowded with Airbnbs right now?

Yes. Tulum has more short-term rentals than its tourists can fill, especially among studios and one-bedroom investment condos.

Several independent signs point the same way. AirROI counts more than 8,000 active rentals, and Airbtics saw supply grow 55.7% in a year and double in three.

Demand didn't follow. Tourist arrivals fell 5.3% in 2025, hotel occupancy dropped more than eight points in the first half of 2026, and airport traffic fell by a third, with airlines now leaving.

Prices show the strain. AirDNA's occupancy is up, but nightly rates are down 23.6% and RevPAR is still lower than a year ago. Cheaper nights buying more bookings is what an oversupplied market looks like.

A good Tulum Airbnb can still make money. The huge gaps between similar units prove that quality and location matter.

But the easy version is gone. Buying another generic condo, furnishing it and waiting for tourism to fill the calendar doesn't work today. Until tourism grows faster than supply for a while, or enough condos leave short-term rental for good, treat Tulum as an oversupplied Airbnb market.