Virgin Atlantic has announced it is responding to “unprecedented demand” for travel to Cancun by increasing its services to the destination.
The airline launched its new direct route from London Gatwick to Cancun on June 12, and will be increasing the twice-weekly service to three times a week from April 4, 2013.
The UK is one of the largest sources of overseas visitors to Cancun and to date, Virgin Atlantic has carried 17,000 passengers and is expected to carry more than 75,000 passengers in the first year alone.
With more than 40,000 bookings taken prior to the first flight in June this year, the Cancun service is one of the airline’s most successful new route launches in its history.
International visitors to Mexico have increased over the past few years, with 2011 proving to be a record year with more than 23 million international travellers.
That figure was up 2% on 2010 and nearly 6% up on 2009, and the destination appears to be rising in popularity with UK travellers, with British visitors increasing by 11.6% between 2010 to 2011.
Virgin Holidays, which launched its first ever dedicated Mexico brochure to support the route when it first went on sale in 2010, has also experienced increased demand. The company reports that it has already sold more than 80% of its target for 2012, and is ahead of schedule for 2013.
Edmond Rose, Virgin Atlantic’s director of commercial and revenue planning, said: “Cancun is performing extremely well for us and in fact is one of our most successful launches ever.”
Virgin Holidays managing director Amanda Wills said the company knew Cancun would be a popular route for its customers, “so this extra flight is fantastic news”.
“There is so much in the destination to appeal to UK holidaymakers and there’s no reason why the demand we’ve seen so far won’t grow even more,” she said.