Design and segmentation of the Hotel Zone followed the concept of “supermanzanas” (subdivisions), architecturally known as the “broken plate diagram”: huge city blocks, separated by large avenues. The first segment of Cancun’s urban area concentrated on what would become the city’s main street, Tulum Avenue. City Hall was built on the largest lot in this area.

The first infrastructure projects for drinking water (sink 16 wells, at a distance of 30 kilometers / 18.6 miles), sewerage (dig more than 100 kilometers / 62 miles of ditches for sewers connected to a treatment plant) and electricity (bring in power lines from Tizimin, Yucatán, 150 kilometers / 93 miles away) cannot even compare to the scope and difficulty of the engineering projects required to create the Hotel Zone.

The equivalent of 240 hectares / 593 acres of topsoil was brought in by trucks: 100 (247 acres) for the golf course, 60 (148 acres) for lot 18 A and 60 for the area surrounding the El Rey ruins and fill for over 80 hectares /198 acres (65 ha / 161 acres to widen the island and 15 ha / 37 acres for the airport road). Some 372,000 m3 (13,137.055 ft3) of mangrove systems were dredged to form Siegfried and Nichupté Channels to improve water exchange between the sea and the lagoons.

The first hotels opened in 1974 (Playa Blanca, Bojorquez and Cancun Caribe); the international airport was inaugurated with 2,600 meters of runway and operating capacity for wide-cabin airplanes; and Infratur and Fonatur government agencies were merged to form the National Foundation for the Promotion of Tourism (Fonatur).