At least one tourist, whose information has not been given, was injured, according to local media.
The shootings were the latest chapter in drug gang violence that has sullied the reputation of Mexico's Caribbean coast as a once-tranquil oasis.
The state police chief wrote in his Twitter account that "There are no seriously injured or kidnapped tourists," but did not say whether there were any non-serious injuries.
Montes de Oca's office said earlier "there was a clash between rival groups of drug dealers on a beach" near the hotels. Several cartels are fighting for the area's lucrative retail drug trade, including the Jalisco cartel and the a gang allied with the Gulf cartel.
Guests at the Hyatt Ziva Cancun posted videos and photos of tourists hiding or nervously milling in the lobby and hallways of hotels during the incident.
Several people said on Twitter that guests were told by staff to hide at the hotel because of an active shooter.
Some guests sought shelter in their rooms, while others said they were confined to the lobby or other common spaces.
Guests at the nearby Azul Beach Resort also posted videos of people taking shelter or gathering in the lobby. An employee who answered the phone at the hotel said the shooting occurred on the beach near the facility.
Rival cartels often kill another gang's street-level dealers in Mexico to eliminate competition and ensure their drugs are sold first. It is not the first time that tourists have been caught in the crossfire of such battles.
The Puerto Morelos shooting comes two weeks after a California travel blogger and a German tourist were killed in a similar shootout in the beach town of Tulum.
A San Jose, California woman born in India, Anjali Ryot, and German citizen Jennifer Henzold were apparently hit by crossfire from the October 20 drug dealers' shootout in Tulum, south of Puerto Morelos.
Three other foreign tourists were wounded in the shooting at a street-side eatery that has some outdoor tables, right off Tulum's main strip. They included two German men and a Dutch woman.
The German Foreign Office issued a travel advisory about the violence, advising its citizens "if you are currently in the Tulum or Playa del Carmen area, do not leave your secured hotel facilities."
The Tulum gunfight also apparently broke out between two groups that operate street-level drug sales in the area, according to prosecutors.
There have been signs that the situation in Quintana Roo state, where all the resorts are located, was out of control months ago. In June, two men were shot to death on the beach in Tulum and a third was wounded.
And in nearby Playa del Carmen, police stage a massive raid in October on the beach town's restaurant-lined Quinta Avenida, detaining 26 suspects — most apparently for drug sales — after a city policewoman was shot to death and locked in the trunk of a car last week. Prosecutors said on Friday they have arrested a suspect in that killing.
Crime "has gone up a little with extortion, with drug sales to foreigners and Mexicans," the prosecutors office said in a statement about the raid.
The administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has pinned its hopes on the so-called Maya Riviera, where it has announced plans to build an international airport and a stop for the Maya train, which will run in a loop around the Yucatan peninsula.
