Why ‘High Season’ still matters in Los Cabos

Los Cabos has go a much year-round destination successful caller years, and the numbers enactment this trend. The summertime months, traditionally the bosom of Los Cabos’ dilatory tourism season, person seen expanding numbers of visitors implicit the past decade. In 2016, lone 450,000 tourists arrived betwixt July and September. By 2024, according to Fideicomiso de Turismo de Los Cabos (FITURCA), that fig had grown to 800,000.

Yes, tourism has besides accrued during precocious season, which runs from October done May, with its implicit highest betwixt December and March. Taking lone the play from October to December, for example, tourism grew from 710,000 successful 2016 to 1.31 cardinal successful 2024. But tourism successful the autumn and wintertime nary longer outperforms summer arsenic convincingly arsenic it has successful the past, and the spread betwixt these seasons has been gradually shrinking. It’s not each snowbirds anymore, successful different words.

October and the instrumentality of precocious play successful Los Cabos ushers successful much large events, including Sammy Hagar’s yearly day bashes astatine Cabo Wabo Cantina successful October. (redrocker.com)

Even with the shrinking gap, however, these numbers contiguous a almighty statement that precocious play inactive matters. With that successful mind, present are 5 reasons to observe the accomplishment of October successful Los Cabos and the instrumentality of precocious season.

Changing weather

As September turns to October, respective invited changes occur: the somesthesia drops (from an mean of 85 degrees Fahrenheit to 82), humidity lessens and sunshine increases owed to decreased precipitation levels and chances of tropical storms. 

The upwind quality is adjacent starker if we presumption it from a larger lens, comparing the play of July-September versus that of October-December. In the second calendar window, humidity drops importantly (from 73.3% to 56.3%) arsenic bash mean temperatures (from 84 degrees to 75.7), portion the 90+ grade highs of July and August springiness mode to regular highs successful the mid to debased 80s. 

Keep successful caput that this modulation to glorious upwind is taking spot arsenic temperatures are cooling precipitously successful the U.S. and overmuch of Canada arsenic wintertime arrives, and it’s casual to spot however and wherefore the accepted precocious play developed arsenic it has. Particularly, erstwhile 1 considers that adjacent successful December, h2o temperatures successful Los Cabos mean 75 degrees and are comfy for swimming, diving and different activities. 

Changing edifice rates

One of the astir important reasons that precocious play successful Los Cabos inactive matters is that the quality successful mean edifice rates betwixt precocious play and debased has ne'er been wider. It bears noting that rates person gone up importantly crossed the committee since the pre-pandemic era, with the mean regular complaint (ADR) climbing precipitously successful the abstraction of a fewer abbreviated years. 

However, if we comparison the 3rd and 4th quarters (July-September vs. October-December), it’s wide that the erstwhile inactive offers important attractions from a budgetary perspective. Yes, rates successful the 3rd 4th person accrued by 53.6% since 2019. But high-season rates successful October-December person gone up by 61.4% during the aforesaid six-year stretch.

Hotel prices emergence to conscionable expanding request during the precocious play successful Los Cabos, but person besides risen importantly year-round since 2019.

If you’re wondering, Los Cabos boasts the highest edifice rates connected mean successful Mexico, a reflection of its ongoing rebranding arsenic a luxury destination. September remains the astir affordable clip to book, arsenic erstwhile October arrives, rates statesman rising. In 2024, for example, per FITURCA data, ADR during the 3rd 4th was $381, arsenic compared to $441 successful the fourth. So rates went up by astir $60, a premium pricing uptick of 16.4% to conscionable accrued request during precocious tourer season.

More large events

There are a fewer large events during the summertime months, but astir nary during August and September. The seasonal lawsuit calendar kickstarts successful earnest successful October, with a spate of heavyweight happenings, and this momentum continues passim precocious season. 

Some weren’t intentionally scheduled to instrumentality vantage of the season. Sammy Hagar’s yearly birthday bashes astatine Cabo Wabo Cantina – a large gully for implicit 30 years – are based connected the Red Rocker’s birthdate (Oct. 13). It’s a blessed accident. However, the information that the biggest sportfishing tournaments, including Bisbee’s Black and Blue, with the world’s richest payouts, instrumentality spot successful October has everything to bash with seasonal upwind conditions (and the information that determination is little accidental of tropical storms successful October than successful September). 

More specifically attuned to expanding tourism, meanwhile, is Art Walk successful San José del Cabo, a high-season taste staple since 2006. Each year, this lawsuit returns contemporaneously with Day of the Dead festivities astatine the opening of November – an juncture for creator ofrendas – with locals and tourists alike gathering each Thursday evening done June to locomotion the cobblestone streets and research the galleries, shops, restaurants and bars of the historical Gallery District. 

Whale watching season

Of course, the biggest of large events, virtually and figuratively, is whale watching season. It runs each twelvemonth from Dec. 15 to April 15 and has go not lone a bucket-list enactment but besides a large economical operator for the destination.

It wasn’t ever similar this. Whale watching wasn’t formally introduced arsenic a tourer enactment successful Los Cabos until 1980, helped on by caller permitting procedures from Mexico’s Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT). Still, it would instrumentality a portion for the nascent manufacture to instrumentality hold. By February 2016, determination were 35 permitted ecotourism operators successful Cabo San Lucas and six successful San José del Cabo. Meanwhile, betwixt 2010 and 2019, profits from whale watching accrued exponentially, from $388,622 locally to astir $3 cardinal ($2,911,010, to beryllium exact). 

Whale watching season, which takes spot during Los Cabos’ precocious tourism season, has go a large economical driver. (Los Cabos Tourism Board)

These numbers person lone continued to grow. Nowadays, an estimated 50,000 visitors per twelvemonth enactment successful seasonal whale-watching activities, forming a important constituent of the destination’s tourism economy, some mostly and specifically arsenic the item of its marine ecotourism offerings. That whale watching play runs concurrently with the tallness of precocious play successful Los Cabos is yet different crushed wherefore specified seasonal distinctions inactive matter.

Chris Sands is the erstwhile Cabo San Lucas section adept for the USA Today question website 10 Best and writer of Fodor’s Los Cabos question guidebook. He’s besides a contributor to galore websites and publications, including Tasting Table, Marriott Bonvoy Traveler, Forbes Travel Guide, Porthole Cruise, Cabo Living and Mexico News Daily.