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Playa del Carmen is a city on the coast of the Caribbean Sea in the north east of the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico, located at 20.62° North, 87.07° West. The city is the seat of the Solidaridad municipality. In 2003 the city had a population of about 50,000 people, though it is rapidly growing in population.
Tourism to Playa del Carmen began with the passenger ferry service to Cozumel, an island across the Cozumel Channel and world-famous scuba diving destination. While passing through, many people realized that it was a nice place to relax away from the crowds of Cancún but with the same quality beaches and turquoise waters. While not as incredible as Cozumel, Playa del Carmen's coast offers some good scuba diving opportunities, as well as cenote diving for the more adventurous.
Today Playa del Carmen, or just 'Playa' as it is colloquially referred to, is the center of the Riviera Maya concept, which covers from Cancún to Tulum and the Sian Ka'an biosphere reserve. All tourist activity in Playa del Carmen centres on the Quinta Avenida, or Fifth Avenue, is a pedestrian walkway located just one block inland from the beach, and lined with boutique hotels, shops, bars and restaurants.
Playa Del Carmen wants to retain its small fishing village and artist colony charm, without becoming as large or tourist-dependent as Cancún. To this end, the city passed an ordinance by which all buildings, no matter what, have a limit of three stories, though a few four story buildings were built before the ordinance. For More information on this go to Wikipedia The Online Encyclopedia
Cancún is a coastal city in Mexico's easternmost state, Quintana Roo. It is the municipal seat of Benito Juárez municipality and a world renowned tourist resort with modern beachfront hotels surrounded by the Bahía de Mujeres (Bay of Women), the Caribbean Sea, and the Nichupte and Bojorquez lagoons. The mainland downtown commercial section (Cancún City), connected to the island by two bridges, has broad avenues lined with whitewashed shops, restaurants, and hotels.
The earliest known reference to Cancún called it Cancuen. There's also a site in Guatemala called Cancuen. Cancuen refers to a snake totem, usually identified with Kukulcan or Quetzalcoatl (the Plumed Serpent). The romanization of Mayan words varies, but it is common to use an apostrophe to indicate a kind of glottal stop. It is probable that some Yucatecan or Mexican Mayanist wrote the name as Cancu'en, which was turned into Cancún by someone at the predecessor of Fonatur, the Mexican government tourism development fund that created Cancún. The belief that Cancún means "nido de viboras" (nest of snakes) is modern folklore, according to long-time resident Jules Siegel, author of the Cancun User's Guide.
Tourism in Cancun In Cancún there are about 140 hotels with 24,000 rooms and 380 restaurants. Four million visitors arrive each year in an average of 190 flights daily. The hotel zone is one of the most exclusive internationally, with upmarket restaurants, bars, and the like which have catered for quite a number of the rich and famous. The hotel zone tends to be rather expensive as it is aimed at visitors and relies on the all inclusive hotels to keep them all in this area allowing prices to soar. Downtown is home to less expensive places to shop like Walmart, Comercial Mexicana and Soriana, not to mention several flea markets like the one in the hotel zone. For more information go to Wikipedia The Online Encyclopedia
