Mexico: Down to the Beach

As more and more show organizers look for sites outside the United States to hold existing events or launch new ones, Mexico has grown in popularity as a destination.

Mexico City hosts the most meetings and exhibitions in the country but, with at least 9 million residents, traffic-jammed streets and tradeshow venues that are constantly busy, organizers have begun to look for alternative Mexican venues that offer a more laid-back experience.

Two resort cities well-known for leisure travel, Cancun and Cabo San Lucas, have spent the last few years transforming themselves into meeting destinations. And another, Acapulco, is primed to join them with the anticipated opening of a new convention center in November.

The Cancun Center Conventions & Exhibitions, a 14,237 square meter (153,250 square foot) facility located on the Mexican Rivera at the easternmost tip of the Yucatan Peninsula, attracted more than 500 events of all sizes in 2007, according to International Sales Manager Luis Pineda. Those events include a fair share with a national or international focus – not bad, considering the damage that Hurricane Wilma did to the area in 2005.

“Cancun has traditionally focused on the leisure market,” Pineda said. “The hotels, the packages, the activities and so forth have been created for this kind of tourism.”

However, in the last few years, both public and private entities have undertaken initiatives to capture the economic benefits of the profitable meetings industry:

• The Cancun Center, originally built in 1993 by the Quintana Roo state government, was taken private five years ago.
• The Cancun Convention & Visitors Bureau created a division focused exclusively on the meetings industry.
• Several resorts have undergone renovations that have included more meeting space.

“Things are starting to take off for the meetings market in this region,” Pineda said. To spur the effort, he added, the Cancun Center has developed the Cancun City Wide Events Alliance with other local private service providers such as hotels, restaurants, night clubs and transportation companies.

“We market ourselves as a destination with the infrastructure, connectivity and best value in Mexico for the realization of the most important national and international events,” Pineda said.

Pineda noted that the Intl. Congress & Convention Assn. ranked the Cancun Center as the venue with the most international congresses in Mexico, 14.

Still, there's more work to be done. he said that in the next few years he'd like to see “the development of more companies able to cope with the demands of this fast-evolving industry.”

At the southernmost tip of the Baja California Peninsula is another Mexican city, Cabo San Lucas, that is becoming a draw for meetings and conventions. Spring-breakers, surfers and golfers have flocked to the area for years, but the city of more than 50,000 is also an attraction for groups looking for a relaxed environment to conduct business.

“With the rise of Los Cabo to one of the premier luxury destinations in the world, meeting planners quickly became aware of the opportunity to, at first, host small corporate meetings,” said Gonzalo Franyutti De La Parra, president of the Los Cabo Convention & Visitors Bureau.

Even without a substantial convention center, Cabo San Lucas can handle small meetings and conventions in new properties that have been built with large room inventories and some meeting space. Group business has started to trickle into the marketplace, which now averages about 100 meetings a year, according to Franyutti De La Parra. About 70 percent of attendees at these meetings are from the U.S.

Because of the rising demand, he said, Cabo San Lucas is experiencing a challenge most cities worldwide would love to have: too much business.

“We have been fortunate to be on the hot list for many meeting planners and, while we can accommodate most, we have had to turn away some business,” Franyutti De La Parra said.

Officials to the south in Acapulco will gladly accommodate any business that Cabo San Lucas has to turn away.

Acapulco's Expo Imperial, a 33,500 sq. m. (360,000 sq. ft.) convention center, and the adjoined Foro Imperial, a 4,800-seat theater, are scheduled to open in November as part of Mundo Imperial, a project that will include an 879-room hotel and 19,500 sq. m. (210,000 sq. ft.) of restaurant and retail space.

Acapulco already has one tradeshow venue, the Acapulco Cultural & Convention Center, with 34,500 sq. m. (371,081 sq. ft.) of exhibit space. Expo Imperial operators hope the new development will help recover some of the glamour once attached to the destination.

“It'll be Las Vegas-style,” said Gregg Caren, senior vice president of strategic business development for SMG, which will manage the new convention center, “a Mandalay Bay without the gambling.”