VIVAS VALDÉS, VEUDI (2023). NOTES AND RESEARCH – CHRONICLER AND HISTORIAN OF COZUMEL. INTERVIEW CONDUCTED BY THE DIRECTORATE OF TOURISM AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF THE MUNICIPALITY OF COZUMEL.
The Museum of the Island is part of the Tangible Heritage of our State, which is located in a historic building. In 1938 the third hotel in Cozumel known as “Hotel Playa” was inaugurated when General Rafael Eustasio Melgar Andrade governed Quintana Roo, who had it built with a futuristic vision so that Cozumel could offer decent lodging to any visitor.
Its operation was through a state concession administered by private individuals, among them Mr. Roberto Mariles Barroso, Mr. Luciano Vivas Esquivel and in the emergence of tourism it was reconditioned under the administration of Don Miguel Joaquín Ibarra, providing it with a swimming pool and restaurant bar service.
In that hotel the pioneers of tourist services began more than 60 years ago and are part of the history of the development of this activity that today is the basis of our economy.
Some of the initiators of this activity were: Lenin and Ulises Mendoza Castro, Jorge Rivero Brito, Miguel Barrera Cimé, Óscar Villanueva Vivas, Judith Uch and Lucía Pastrana among others, who worked at the Hotel Playa (today Museo de la Isla) as well as with the Hotel Mayalum, which was one of the first tourist hotels in Cozumel with seven rooms from 1954 to 1957.
The Museo de la Isla was inaugurated in April 1987 to be the guardian of the cultural heritage of Cozumel’s inhabitants with interactive rooms, permanent and temporary exhibits; the museum houses everything you need to know about the customs of the island’s inhabitants.
Currently the Museum of the Island is administered by the Foundation of Parks and Museums of Cozumel Quintana Roo, a decentralized public organism of the Government of the State of Quintana Roo.
