Cabo and the Los Cabos Region is a Boom Town!

Cabo San Lucas and the Los Cabos region, which includes the corridor and the town of San Jose del Cabo is undergoing a fantastic boom. Growth in Cabo San Lucas Baja California Sur, Mexico is continuing to explode. Whether it is in population, commercial ventures, house and timeshare sales or hotels it all seems to be booming.

With the introduction of an International Airport north of San Jose del Cabo in the 80’s and a boom of resorts and golf courses created in the corridor between Cabo and San Jose del Cabo have really spurred a great deal of new business for Mexicans and foreigners alike.

According to the 2000 Mexican census by CENSO Los Cabos was the 323rd largest city in Mexico with a population of 51,790. It is also said to in the top 10 destinations resorts in all of Mexico. The growth since 2000 has been even more explosive with many quoting that Los Cabos is one of if not the fastest growing area in Mexico. While it is very difficult to find actual figures to back up any claims about population many feel Cabo could be over 80,000 including people between the corridor and San Jose del Cabo.

One thing to note when speaking of population; these figures do not represent those that are part time residents and by no means represent all of those “locals” that have come here for the tourism and construction industries from other parts of Mexico. It is very difficult to know exactly how many live in neighborhoods of thousands, where there are no addresses or even street names.

One example of where the government not only recognizes this growth, but has for example, moved the “Head office” for Migracion from the capital city of La Paz to Cabo San Lucas. The Mexico tourism board last year was reported as having been satisfied with the occupancy of Cancun and Cozumel, they were to now focus on promoting Los Cabo Baja California. It seems to be working as many of the new resorts are already boasting a 65% occupancy or better on the average.

As for Cabo tourist there are several new bars like Roxx, Mambo Café, Moon Crab, and new restaurants like the Roxx, 2 South, Desperados, La Casa Country and Pan Asian Chinese food just to name a few.

There has also been branching out by existing restaurants like Greenberg’s Mexitessen who is now additionally located in the yet to be filled Puerto Paraiso shopping mall and the Baja Cantina and the Nowhere Bar, with their additional Medano beach locations. There are also new medium sized businesses showing up with products actually from Cabo San Lucas such as the Cabo Coffee Company and Cabo Chips. While most goods sold in Cabo are not from here there are more and more of the small gift shops and leather, clothing and gallery stores selling everything from all over Mexico.

You will also notice due to the increased Cruise Ship traffic the increase of high end jewelry stores such as Pacific Jewelers with 6 stores and Diamonds International.

There are also many new as well as expanded tourist services as witnessed by the size of the growing ATV rental market, jet ski, para-sailing, or the increase in sailing charters like the La Princessa fleet with its new Spin Doctor Catamaran.

Major developments are happening all over as well with the already known Mayan Palace and Pueblo Bonito moving ahead fast on their new golf resorts, condo timeshare developments. It is rumored that in the month of February that 25 million dollars worth of timeshares were sold in the Los Cabos region.

There is also the new fast moving development of the new Marina Los Cabos in San Jose del Cabo with an adjoining golf course. This development has already sold 75% of their inventory in their phase one of retirement housing. They are ahead of schedule (in Mexico?) and are planning on opening phase two sooner than planned.

Many of the construction supply, hardware, tile, stone, plumbing, electrical, roofing and paint stores have been springing up everywhere. Also many mainland contractors from Mexico City and Guadalajara have shown up for the medium to large developments.

All in all while there may not be hard figures to show exactly what the growth is it is obvious to most this is only the beginning of an explosive growth period for the Los Cabos region. I lived in Aspen in the 70’s and Hood River Oregon in the late 80’s to early 90’s and this has very a familiar feel to it.

Of course if you are one of the “old timers” that help “build” the Los Cabos region you may be ready to pull out of the growing metropolis of Los Cabos. My feeling is that for every one person leaving there are at least 10 new ones coming and another hundred thinking about it. So if you are interested in relocating to a “fun in the sun” place to live that is full of opportunity you will want to check out the Los Cabos area