City report
Guadalajara, Guadalajara!
PAUL COLSTON MEETS THE MEETINGS MARIACHIS PLAYING A CONTEMPORARY
CONFERENCE TUNE IN MEXICO’S PEARL CITY
ith authentic experiences at
the top of millennial
meeting organisers’
shopping list, Mexico’s
second city of Guadalajara is worth a
showround inspection.
Claimed as the home of the mariachi,
tequila and the charrería (rodeo),
Guadalajara is ‘going global’ as it
markets itself to host increasing numbers
of major international events.
American Capital of Culture in 2005
and host of the Pan American Games in
2011, the city is home to the Guadalajara
International Film Festival.
Known as Mexico’s Pearl of the West,
the city also has the country’s biggest
venue jewel in the shape of Expo
Guadalajara, with 100,000sqm of space.
The facility hosts 500 events and 2m
visitors per year. PALCCO is another
convention centre with a strong history
of hosting major events and has all
contemporary facilities on offer.
While Cancun may draw the US
crowds for incentives and Monterrey is
famous for its auto manufacturing
strength, Guadalajara can boast an even
broader array of industry strong suits:
IT, fashion, footwear and textile; apparel,
jewellery and furniture, to name a few.
Guadalajara is also the hometown for
the second largest bookfair in the world,
FIL.
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CONFERENCE & MEETINGS WORLD
And the city’s culture is not just found
between the covers: the Tlaquepaque
City area is a hub of artists, sculptors and
arts in general, with a real café society
feel. It is a beautiful spot for a stroll, some
souvenir hunting or to take a bite out of
Mexico’s rich cuisine.
There is stunning colonial
architecture to be seen in the historic
downtown, where you can end your tour
in one of the city’s oldest cantinas – La
Fuente.
The city has a quarter named ‘Zona
Expo’, effectively the headquarters of the
largest events venues in Latin America,
with 30 hotels servicing them.
Global partnership of conference and
association management companies
INCON held its annual ‘INCON
University’ in Guadalajara in late
October 2019.
As well as the Worldwide Cardio
Diabetes Congress, which was in town in
September 2019 with 500 delegates, the
International Congress of Latin
American Studies Association (LASA), is
booked in for May 2020, with 7,000
delegates and the major Engineering in
Medicine and Biology (EMBS) congress
for 2021, with 4,000 delegates.
The meetings and events pipeline is
strong, with the 37th World Congress of
Sports Medicine (FIMS) due in
September 2022, and predicting 3,000
attendees, while the 21st Congress of the
International Society of Burn Injuries
(ISBI) is due in August 2024, with 1,500
delegates.
With the Hyatt Regency and the new
Hard Rock Hotel adding conference
capacity and colour to the PCO palette of
choice, what else can delegates expect to
stimulate their experiential senses during
a trip to Guadalajara?
Hard Rock Hotel offers 348 rooms in
five categories and can cater for banquets
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ISSUE 103
Above:
INCON University
surfing the Mexican
wave in Guadalajara
Bottom left:
Our editor gets
stuck into the agave
harvest in Tequila
for up to 1,500 people. The hotel has a
‘vibe’ manager and there is a choice of 20
fender guitars for guests to practise on.
I can highly recommend a trip to the
agave fields, and following the spirit
distillation process through to the end in
the town of Tequila, an hour’s drive from
Guadalajara.
The Jose Cuervo La Rojeña distillery
offers a fascinating tour and masterclass
in tequila appreciation, as well as events
spaces.
The INCON faculty held one of its
sessions there and incorporated another
well-known local cultural icon – the
mariachi band – into proceedings.
Guadalajara is young, vibrant city
with a growing festival culture, much
based around the relatively new Akron
stadium, home of top league side, Chivas.
Guadalajara is a high-tech hub, with
the infrastructure and cultural draw to
take its meetings hosting to a new global
level, as the local CVB CEO tells CMW
exclusively on page 59. With the North
and South American markets obvious
targets, the new European front is
opening up and many European based
organisers would do well to take a look
at the diverse offer that is available at
very competitive prices both in the city of
Guadalajara and the province of Jalisco.