Whatever happened to the GO Riviera Maya Outlet Mall?
When renders of the Grand Outlet Riviera Maya Mall circulated online a little over a year ago, it certainly raised eyebrows and garnered the attention of people. It appeared to be a huge entertainment/shopping venue that would be the largest in the Riviera Maya (and even described as what would be one of the largest entertainment/shopping experience malls in Latin America). The render above almost made it look like it was oceanfront and would be a major attraction with a lot of entertainment venues. The truth is this mall is on the west side of the 307 Highway and the large body of water in the rendering is a proposed manmade lake that has not been built yet.
The Go Riviera Maya Mall opened in late 2023 and has been opening parts of the mall in stages. Since this mall got a lot of attention when it was proposed, we wanted to go and check what this mall is like now and who is visiting this mall.
What stores and attractions this mall have now to offer visitors?
This mall is a collection of stores, luxury stores, entertainment, and a food court. The stores that are well known are: Adidas, America Eagle, Banana Republic Factory, Bath & Body Works, Calvin Klein, Crocs, Dockers, Gap Outlet, Guess, ishop, Kenneth Cole, Levi’s, Nike, OGGI Outlet Store, Pandora, Puma, Reebok, Skechers, Tommy Hilfiger, True Religion, Tumi, and Zingara. The luxury stores in this mall include Armani, Boss, Carolina Herrera, Dolce & Gabbana, Lacoste, Zegna and a few others. We would estimate that the mall is still about 25-30% empty.
For entertainment there is a large arcade which has the indoor go-cart track, Euphoria Escape Rooms (a rentable space for groups), happi Arena (indoor ice-skating rink), and a Winclub Casino. It should be noted that not all of the original entertainment venues have been built or opened.
For food options the main attraction is the food court. Here you can get poke bowls to pizza. It is really a typical mall food court, although not all of spaces are occupied now. We would estimate that about 68% is occupied now.
Is it really an outlet mall?
While some of the stores have the word “outlet” in the title, people’s definition of “outlet” is varied. For most people, an outlet mall is one with discount stores that sell unsold merchandise, last year’s models, second quality items and anything at a sale price. In general, in Mexico the term “outlet” is not what it means in other countries. The word “outlet” in Mexico is a catchy word to promote the idea that you will save money at a mall. In reality it means that there might be the word outlet in the name of some stores and a few discounts, but for the most part, it is just normal stores. This is true of the GO Riviera Maya. If you go to this mall, and you are familiar with outlet malls in the US and Canada, you are not going to feel like you are in an outlet mall.
Where is the Grand Riviera Outlet Mall?
The Grand Outlet Riviera Maya is located on the 307 Highway just south of the Cancun Airport. The mall is located by the Moon Palace Resorts and about 15 minutes north of Puerto Morelos. The location is important because it will determine whether it is close enough and close to enough potential customers to keep it going. Below we will talk about who visits this mall and to what degree.
When is the GO Riviera Maya Outlet Mall open?
The Grand Outlet Riviera Maya is open daily from 11:00am-9:00pm.
Who goes to this mall?
From the website of the GORivieraMaya, they describe the mall as this “Conveniently located only 8 minutes away from the Cancún airport and the coast, Grand Outlet Riviera Maya will welcome the +33 million local and international guests that travel yearly, to the Mayan Riviera.” It appears that they want to welcome every guest and resident to visit, but do they? No, obviously not everyone visits this mall that comes to our area. What about locals, well, actually very few locals go to the mall and there are reasons.
Do people from Cancun go to the GO Riviera Mall?
Let’s start with the location. It is south of Cancun and north of Playa Del Carmen and Puerto Morelos. So technically it is between two large population centers in the Riviera Maya. However, for those in Cancun it is about a 30-minute drive from the downtown and a 25-minute drive from the Hotel Zone. This is by car, taxi or Uber because there are no good public transportation options to this mall. Most people leaving Cancun to go to the Grand Outlet Riviera Maya would pass several shopping malls in Cancun before arriving (mainly the large Plaza Las Americas which opened in 2005). This means that the GO Riviera Maya Mall would need something to attract people to make the trip worthwhile.
Do residents of Puerto Morelos visit this mall?
The population of Puerto Morelos is about 19,000 people. Puerto Morelos is more of a bedroom community for workers that work at the many all-inclusive hotels in the area. In Puerto Morelos there are no malls and not much shopping options. This would be an option for residents to shop for clothes and the entertainment venues do offer locals something special to visit for. It is however limited since the luxury fashion stores are not what most residents are looking for. The 15–20-minute drive and very limited public transportation is going to limit people from visiting the mall.
What about tourists in the area at the Moon Palace Resorts and other hotels?
Across the Highway and down to the beach you have the Moon Palace Resorts. This is a huge 123-acre property that can accommodate several thousand people. On paper this might look great to someone who wants to open a store and have access to so many tourists. The fact of the matter is, not many people want to go to a mall on vacation and not many people want to leave a resort for a mall (except on a rainy day maybe).
Behind this mall there are two hotels that have been incorporated into the plan. These hotels are the Avani Hotel and City Express Plus. So, who stays at these hotels? We wondered this and went to find out. Since these hotels are close to the airport, many airlines use these hotels for pilots and airline staff for layovers. There are also a few businesspeople that stay at the hotels, but not many tourists since this area is in the middle of nowhere. These are not the type of people that are going to be going shopping each time they are there.
Do people from Playa Del Carmen go to this mall?
From Playa Del Carmen to this mall is about a 40-minute drive. Again, this mall would need to have shops or attractions that are different from those in Playa in order for people to go visit. The Grand Outlet Riviera Maya does have luxury brands that cannot be found in Playa Del Carmen and some cool entertainment options, but again, this is a limited market that want to drive the distance to visit. Playa Del Carmen does have two malls, but not as large as the Grand Outlet Riviera Maya Mall.
What is our overall opinion of this outlet mall?
The first impression was “Mmm this is it?” The renderings and articles written about it made it seem like one of the hottest places to go in the Riviera Maya. When we were at the mall it seems sufficient to walk around, and shop and the entertainment features are some of the more exciting things we have seen in malls in the Riviera Maya. We also noticed how few people there were and how low energy the mall was. Based on how many personal friends we know that have been to this mall and even in talking to Cancun taxi drivers that don’t know where the mall is, this project has some work ahead of it to promote itself and get people to visit it.
Cancun and Puerto Morelos are growing together and merge. There is no doubt that the area is growing, and this infrastructure will be more appreciated in the future. Do we recommend going to visit this mall? Well, if you are a local resident, for basic clothes shopping you might be better off at the malls in downtown Cancun and in Playa Del Carmen. For upper end name brand clothes, you do have some options at this mall that are not found in other places, and you might try here. Locals that have children might make a pilgrimage to the Go Riviera Maya for the go-carts and other entertainment options. For tourists we find it very hard to imagine visitors in Cancun to make a trip to this mall. In the Hotel Zone you have several malls and even one with a Ferris wheel and other entertainment options, so it does not seem logical to spend about $50 USD on a taxi to the mall and half a day when you have other options closer. For tourists in Playa Del Carmen, it does not seem reasonable to spend a day of your vacation visiting this mall. There are hundreds of tourists’ attractions in the Rivier Maya that offer a more typical vacation experience. For those staying close by to the Go Rivier Maya Outlet Mall, if you have easy transportation and half a day of time, this mall might bring some entertainment or offer you something to do if you get bored at the resort.
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