Meagan Drillinger
Soon it will be even easier to explore Mexico's state of Nayarit thanks to a major expansion of Tepic Airport and the construction of a new highway connecting the state capital to the coast. I was at the Gala Puerto Vallarta-Riviera Nayarit 2024, held Feb. 8-9 in Puerto Vallarta, where I learned about the upcoming changes to Tepic Airport and what that will mean for travel to Nayarit.
Tepic Airport is in the north central portion of the state of Nayarit, three hours west of Guadalajara and three hours north of Puerto Vallarta. While most visitors to the Riviera Nayarit currently fly into Puerto Vallarta or Guadalajara, an expansion of the airport will open up the coastline, especially the northern portion which receives fewer visitors than the south. This will make destinations like San Blas, Costa Canuva and Rincon de Guayabitos -- and their important tourism developments -- easier to access for international travelers. Seventy-two percent of visitors who come to Nayarit do so for tourism, and 60 percent of those visitors are international tourists. Eighty-one percent of visitors who come to the Riviera Nayarit currently fly into either Puerto Vallarta or Guadalajara.
In addition to a revamped airport, a new highway, expected to be completed this year, will shorten the drive time between Tepic and the Riviera Nayarit. The new highway will shorten the journey from Tepic to Punta Mita to just an hour and 15 minutes, down from the nearly three-hour journey it is now.
With an investment of $250 million, the Nayarit airport is projected to receive at least 4 million passengers a year. The investment will include a new terminal building through which 3 million passengers a year will pass. It will also include new jet bridges, more than 33,000 square feet of shops and restaurants, a new air traffic control tower, a new car rental center with companies like Hertz, Avis, and Budget, and a new airport hotel.
The highway connecting the expanded airport to the Riviera Nayarit is expected to be completed by October. This will make it easier for travelers to access existing and upcoming Riviera Nayarit developments, like the One&Only Mandarina and the Rosewood Mandarina, Imanta Resort, W Punta Mita, Four Seasons Punta Mita and Naviva and the Costa Canuva.
The Riviera Nayarit has more than 14,000 hotel rooms, 75 percent of which are in the luxury segment. The new airport will provide a huge opportunity to boost tourism to this part of Mexico.