Here's part of an article from The Playa Times:
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Currently, our state, located on parallel 75, has the same time as the City of Mexico, located on parallel 94 west of the Greenwich meridian, which meant that in winter nighttime would fall very early. With the new time zone, clocks will be moved forward by an hour and will permanently remain on Daylight Savings Time (or Summer Time).
February 1, at 2:00 a.m., clocks will be set to 3:00 a.m. in the southeastern area. The northeastern part of the country will be three hours behind, i.e., midnight. In the Pacific, they will be two hours behind and in the Center they will be one hour behind, i.e., 2:00 a.m.
Quintana Roo will have an hour more of sunlight and according to the authorities from the Federal Commission of Electricity (CFE) this will result in significant energy savings of 21,285 to 23,454 megawatts per hour, curbing 20 thousand of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
According to the Energy Commission’s deputy Graciela Saldaña, who proposed the initiative to the Union Congress, energy savings will greatly benefit consumption rates and especially favor the hotel sector, “since 60 percent of energy consumption in the state comes from the hotel sector, costing them 150 million pesos a month.”
According to the state’s government, the new time zone will improve airline connectivity and transit times with 22 US airports and eight Canadian airports, as they will be in the same time zone. The Caribbean, Central and South American will also be in sync. According to the National Tourism Business Council, this will result in an additional 845 thousand pesos annually for Quintana Roo as a result of having an extra hour of sunlight in which tourism and recreation activities can take place.
For the tourism sector, led by the Riviera Maya Hotels Association (AHRM), the new time zone will improve competitiveness of the destination against other Caribbean destinations such as Cuba, Jamaica, Puerto Rico and the Bahamas.
“By standardizing time zones with the major airports in the Eastern United States we will be more competitive and we will save energy,” says Manuel Paredes Mendoza, the director of the AHRM
