CANCUN, MEXICO – The swine-flu epidemic in Mexico has led to the temporary closure of 16 hotels and an 85 percent drop in tourist arrivals in Cancun, the Riviera Maya and Cozumel, the country’s main tourist destinations, officials said.

An estimated 90,000 fewer tourists have arrived at those Caribbean destinations, located in Quintana Roo state, since the government issued a health alert on April 23 in response to the outbreak of the AH1N1 virus, according to tourism ministry figures.

Each visitor spends an average of about $1,100 on trips to that area of southeastern Mexico, according to figures from the Cancun Hotel Association, whose affiliates are located across Quintana Roo.

Therefore, the losses suffered by the local tourism industry, which operates a total of 74,000 guestrooms, have been estimated at roughly $99 million.

Quintana Roo Gov. Felix Gonzalez said on Friday in Cancun that 16 hotels comprising around 10,000 guestrooms have closed their doors, although Mexico’s Tourism Secretariat puts the number of closures at 19.

Gonzalez acknowledged that foreign tourist arrivals have fallen by 85 percent in recent days, while the number of visits by domestic tourists is down between 40 percent and 45 percent.

The Spanish hotel chains Riu, Barcelo, Oasis and Melia and French outfit Club Med already have either temporarily shuttered some of their lodging facilities in Cancun, the Riviera Maya and Cozumel or curtailed their operations.

In some cases hotels have shut down for a month, while in others employees are working just four days a week.

Patricia Diaz, director of tourism operator Quimbaya Tours International, said that it is normal in low season for hotels with a large number of guestrooms to temporarily close a portion of their facilities.

But the combined effect of lower seasonal demand and fears over the AH1N1 virus have prompted hotels to shut down completely.

“Each hotel’s decision to reopen will depend on the number of reservations they have in the coming months,” Diaz said.

Some analysts say the impact of the AH1N1 virus on the Cancun tourism industry will be worse than that of Hurricane Gilbert in 1988 and Hurricane Wilma in 2005, which caused millions of dollars in damage to hotel infrastructure in that region.

Labor groups like the Revolutionary Confederation of Workers and Peasants, or CROC, and the Confederation of Mexican Workers, or CTM, are on alert due to the possibility of mass layoffs.

Isidro Santamaria, local leader of the CTM, said that at least another five hotels run by national and international chains are expected to close next week.

Carlos Hernandez Blanco, head of the State Employment Service in Quintana Roo, warned that if health concerns over the AH1N1 virus persist much longer as many as 50,000 workers in the tourist industry could be out of a job.

According to figures from the Port Authority of Quintana Roo, the health alert issued in response to the swine-flu outbreak has resulted in 32 cruise ships not arriving at Cozumel, which represents the loss of 96,000 visitors.

That Mexican state received 8,025,745 tourists in 2008, 14.6 percent more than the previous year.

Tourism is Mexico’s third-leading source of hard currency after oil and remittances.

Mexico has been the epicenter of the swine-flu virus, with 45 deaths and 1,364 cases, although the representative of the Pan American Health Organization in Mexico, Oscar Mujica, said Friday that preventive measures taken by the government beginning last month, such as suspending classes and other activities for several days, prevented an estimated 8,605 deaths and 30,000 hospitalizations.

Mujica said that “while the epidemic appears to have stabilized,” it is “imperative” to continue with control measures.

At the same meeting with the press, Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordova said that higher temperatures impede the propagation of the virus, while “the colder and drier it gets,” the easier it is for it to spread.

For that reason he was able to send a calming message to tourists wanting to visit Mexico’s coastal resorts, both the Cancun area and the Pacific states of Guerrero and Baja California, where hardly any cases of contagion have been found.