Xcaret is a Maya civilization archaeological site located on the Caribbean coastline of the Yucatán Peninsula, in the modern-day state of Quintana Roo in Mexico. The site was occupied by the pre-Columbian Maya and functioned as a port for navigation and an important Maya trading center. Some of the site's original structures are contained within a modern-day tourism development, the privately owned Xcaret Eco Park."While Xcaret offers many tourist packages, ranging from about $75 and over, a visitor can request to visit the archaeological ruins only for about four dollars according to an agreement with the Instituto Nacional de Antropología y Historia. However, park officials report that only about one person every three months requests that opportunity."Xcaret has many reserves that are open to the public. According to the research by the National Institute of Anthropology and History, the first buildings of the site can be dated to 200 to 600 A.D., but the majority of them are from the period from 1200 to 1550 A.D. The constructions of the Late Post-Classical period are situated along the coast; some of them in strategic positions for surveillance. The site had a wall, but unlike the one in Tulum that was open towards the ocean, the wall at Xcaret defended the site from assaults coming from the sea. The wall may also have served to divide the solid ground of the interior from the swampy ground closer to the coast.Xcaret was inhabited at the time of the first stage of the Spanish incursion of Alonso Dávila and Francisco de Montejo into the eastern coast of the Yucatán Peninsula. In 1548, Juan Nunez was put in charge of Xcaret. At this time, a Spanish chapel was built. This implies that Xcaret remained an important settlement. The thatched roof of the chapel has disintegrated, but the walls remain standing. The INAH divides the architectural formations into several different groups.

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Cancún is a city in southeastern Mexico, located on the southeast coast of the Yucatán Peninsula in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo. It is a major world-renowned tourist destination, as well as being the seat of the municipality of Benito Juárez. The city is located on the Caribbean Sea, and is one of the easternmost points in Mexico. Cancún is located just north of Mexico's Caribbean coast resort band known as the Riviera Maya.There are two possible translations of Cancún, based on the Mayan pronunciation kaan kun. The first translation is "nest of snakes." The second version and less accepted is "place of the gold snake."As documented in the earliest colonial sources, the island of Cancún was originally known to its Maya inhabitants as Nizuc meaning either "promontory" or "point of grass". In the years after the Conquest, much of the population died off or left as a result of disease, warfare, piracy, and famines, leaving only small settlements on Isla Mujeres and Cozumel Island.The name Cancún, Cancum or Cankun first appears on 18th century maps.[citation needed] The meaning of Cancún is unknown, and it is also unknown whether the name is of Maya origin. If it is of Maya origin, possible translations include "Place/Seat/Throne of the Snake" or "Enchanted Snake". Snake iconography was prevalent at the pre-Columbian site of Nizuc.When development was started on January 23, 1970, Isla Cancún had only three residents, caretakers of the coconut plantation of Don José de Jesús Lima Gutiérrez, who lived on Isla Mujeres, and there were only 117 people living in nearby Puerto Juarez, a fishing village and military base."Due to the reluctance of investors to bet on an unknown area, the Mexican government had to finance the first nine hotels."The first hotel financed was the Hyatt Cancún Caribe, but the first hotel actually built was the Playa Blanca, which later became a Blue Bay hotel, and is now Temptation Resort. At the time it was an elite destination, famous for its virgin white sand beaches.The city began as a tourism project in 1974 as an Integrally Planned Center, a pioneer of FONATUR, formerly known as INFRATUR. Since then, it has undergone a comprehensive transformation from being a fisherman's island surrounded by virgin forest and undiscovered shores to being one of the two most well-known Mexican resorts, along with Acapulco. The World Tourism Organization, through its foundation UNWTO-Themis, awarded the Best of the Best award "for excellence and good governance" to the Trust for Tourism Promotion of Cancun on February 3, 2007. This award Cancún ensured the ongoing support of the Department of Education and Knowledge Management of the WTO.

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Cabo San Lucas, commonly called Cabo, is a city at the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula, in the Mexican state of Baja California Sur. Cabo San Lucas together with San José Del Cabo is known as Los Cabos.Cabo has been rated as one of Mexico's top 5 tourist destinations it is known for its beaches, scuba diving locations, balnearios, the sea arch El Arco de Cabo San Lucas, and marine life. The Los Cabos Corridor has become a heavily-trafficked holiday destination for tourists, with numerous resorts and timeshares along the coast between Cabo San Lucas and San José del Cabo.Archaeological excavations have shown evidence of continual human habitation in the area for at least ten thousand years.When the first Europeans arrived, they encountered the Pericú people, who survived on a subsistence diet based on hunting and the gathering of seeds, roots, shellfish, and other marine resources. They called the location Yenecamú.According to the narrative of Hatsutaro, a Japanese castaway, in the book Kaigai Ibun, when he arrived at Cabo San Lucas in May 1842 there were only two houses and about twenty inhabitants. However, American authors such as Henry Edwards and John Ross Browne claim that Cabo San Lucas's founder was an Englishman named Thomas "Old Tom" Ritchie. John Ross Browne says Ritchie arrived there about 1828, while Edwards says that he died in October 1874.A fishing village began growing in the area when in 1917, an American company built a floating platform to catch tuna and ten years later founded Compañía de Productos Marinos S.A., the plant lasted several years in operation.Cabo San Lucas has become a prominent vacation and spa destination, with a variety of sites of interest and timeshares that have been built on the coast between San Lucas and San José del Cabo. It is sometimes considered the "Fort Lauderdale of Mexico." The distinctive El Arco de Cabo San Lucas is a local landmark.Cabo San Lucas has the highest paying marlin tournament in the world.In the winter, pods of whales can be observed in the area. They bear their calves in the warm waters of the Sea of Cortez after completing their six-thousand-mile migration from Alaska and Siberia.The beaches, surfing, and sport fish opportunities in Cabo San Lucas have attracted a great number of Mexican natives and foreigners to spend their vacations in large-scale tourist developments there. The development of Cabo's tourism industry was prompted by the Mexican government's development of infrastructure to turn Cabo San Lucas into a major center for tourism in Mexico, beginning in 1974. Upon completion of the Transpeninsular Highway, also known as the Mexican Federal Highway 1, tourist developments in Los Cabos often proceeded relatively unchecked.Until fairly recently,the unique and fragile environment of this part of Mexico was largely unprotected by law, and therefore was subjected to developers acting in concert with government agencies interested only in low-end tourist bonanzas. There is, however, a growing collection of activists and attorneys now involved in preserving many of Baja's desert habitats, marine mammals, and stretches of coastline. A number of agencies including the Gulf of California Conservation Fund and the Center for Environmental Law in La Paz are challenging the destruction of wetlands and other ecosystems from Los Cabos to Ensenada. In the face of a growing international public demand for corporate-driven ecological stewardship, higher-end resorts in the Los Cabos area are increasingly sensitive to their environmental impact, and are taking initial steps to institute sustainable practices such as reducing water usage and non-recyclable trash output

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Cancún  is a city in southeastern Mexico, located on the southeast coast of the Yucatán Peninsula in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo. It is a major world-renowned tourist destination, as well as being the seat of the municipality of Benito Juárez. The city is located on the Caribbean Sea, and is one of the easternmost points in Mexico. Cancún is located just north of Mexico's Caribbean coast resort band known as the Riviera Maya.There are two possible translations of Cancún, based on the Mayan pronunciation kaan kun. The first translation is "nest of snakes." The second version and less accepted is "place of the gold snake.The shield of the municipality of Benito Juárez, who represents the city of Cancun, was designed by the artist vital Jesús Carmichael Jiménez. It is divided into three parts: The color blue symbolizes the Caribbean Sea, the yellow the sand and the red the sun with its rays.As documented in the earliest colonial sources, the island of Cancún was originally known to its Maya inhabitants as Nizuc meaning either "promontory" or "point of grass". In the years after the Conquest, much of the population died off or left as a result of disease, warfare, piracy, and famines, leaving only small settlements on Isla Mujeres and Cozumel Island.The name Cancún, Cancum or Cankun first appears on 18th century maps.The meaning of Cancún is unknown, and it is also unknown whether the name is of Maya origin. If it is of Maya origin, possible translations include "Place/Seat/Throne of the Snake" or "Enchanted Snake". Snake iconography was prevalent at the pre-Columbian site of Nizuc.When development was started on January 23, 1970, Isla Cancún had only three residents, caretakers of the coconut plantation of Don José de Jesús Lima Gutiérrez, who lived on Isla Mujeres, and there were only 117 people living in nearby Puerto Juarez, a fishing village and military base.Due to the reluctance of investors to bet on an unknown area, the Mexican government had to finance the first nine hotels.The first hotel financed was the Hyatt Cancún Caribe, but the first hotel actually built was the Playa Blanca, which later became a Blue Bay hotel, and is now Temptation Resort. At the time it was an elite destination, famous for its virgin white sand beaches.

The city began as a tourism project in 1974 as an Integrally Planned Center, a pioneer of FONATUR , formerly known as INFRATUR. Since then, it has undergone a comprehensive transformation from being a fisherman's island surrounded by virgin forest and undiscovered shores to being one of the two most well-known Mexican resorts, along with Acapulco. The World Tourism Organization, through its foundation UNWTO-Themis, awarded the Best of the Best award "for excellence and good governance" to the Trust for Tourism Promotion of Cancun on February 3, 2007. This award Cancún ensured the ongoing support of the Department of Education and Knowledge Management of the WTO.

Most 'Cancúnenses' are from Yucatán and other Mexican states. A growing number are from the rest of the Americas and Europe. The municipal authorities have struggled to provide public services for the constant influx of people, as well as limiting squatters and irregular developments, which now occupy an estimated ten to fifteen percent of the mainland area on the fringes of the city.

In the 21st century, Cancún had largely avoided bloodshed associated with the trade of illegal drugs and reportedly known for retail drug sales to tourists and as a center of money laundering.The links with Cancún date from the 1990s and early 2000s, when the area was controlled by the Juárez and Gulf drug cartels. In recent years Los Zetas, a group that broke away from the Gulf Cartel, has taken control of many smuggling routes through the Yucatán, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

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Riviera Maya, also known as the Mayan Riviera, is a tourism district following the coastal Highway 307 which parallels the Caribbean coastline of the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, located on the eastern portion of the Yucatán Peninsula. This district historically started at the city of Playa del Carmen and ended at the village of Tulum, although the towns of Puerto Morelos situated to the north and between Playa del Carmen and Cancun as well as the town of Felipe Carrillo Puerto situated 40 kilometres (25 mi) to the south of Tulum are both currently being promoted as part of the Riviera Maya tourist corridor.

The Riviera Maya was originally called the Cancun - Tulum corridor, but in 1999 it was renamed as the Riviera Maya with the aid of Lic. Miguel Ramón Martín Azueta who at the time was the mayor of the municipality of Solidaridad, Quintana Roo. The municipality of Solidaridad includes the whole of the official Riviera Maya from Playa del Carmen in the north and south to Tulum and extending to some 40 km inland with the border with the state of Yucatan.

The Riviera Maya is famous for its large scale all-inclusive resorts and a historical tourism base of smaller boutique hotels as well as the many fine-dining restaurants available along the highway 307 and on or near the beaches. Luxury travel entities have been instrumental in increasing luxury villa rentals and yacht charters in the area however these only represent a small fraction of the total tourism accommodation available.

Government development plans include establishing a number of medium sized cities of ~200 000 inhabitants within the Riviera Maya with initial planning spanning 20 years. Target areas for urbanization include the towns and villages of: Puerto Morelos (technically outside the Riviera Maya), Puerto Aventuras, Akumal, Chemuyil, and Tulum.

A major attraction throughout the Riviera Maya are coastal and reef aquatic activities dependent on the coastal water and the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System (also known as the Belize Barrier Reef) which begins near Cancun and continues along the whole length of the Riviera Maya continuing southward to Guatemala. This barrier reef system is the second longest in the world.

Activities at the most visited locations include Jet Skiing, snorkeling, scuba diving, swimming in cenotes, swimming with dolphins, zip-lining, horse riding, sailing, and guided jungle tours. Archeology is also a big tourist draw in the area, including the popular archeological sites operated by the Instituto Nacional de Archeological such as Tulum on the coast, and Chichen Itza and Coba located some distance inland. The self-named ecoparks of Xcaret and Xel-Ha also include some smaller archeological ruins as part of their attractions, but these natural water theme parks operated by private business consortia attract much larger crowds due to the diversity and range of activities provided, such as swimming with captive dolphins

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