City report
Going global down in…Guadalajara
GUSTAVO STAUFERT, CEO OF GUADALAJARA CONVENTION & VISITORS BUREAU (CVB),
TELLS CMW EDITOR PAUL COLSTON ABOUT THEIR PLANS TO GO GLOBAL
“The Guadalajara CVB is the only
private/public entity in the country,”
its CEO Gustavo Staufert tells CMW.
It was founded in 1970 and was the
first convention and visitors bureau in
Latin America.
“Although Detroit’s bureau was set
up in 1890, which means we still have
a lot to do, we are a leader on our
continent,” says Staufert.
The CVB is funded by a city
tourism tax of 3%.
Guadalajara is the most important
city in the country for the MICE
segment, says Staufert. “We are 10%
behind Mexico City, but they have
22m and we have 5m people.”
Staufert uses the local wine mezcal
(‘mezcal’ meaning cactus in the native
Indian language), with its tradition of
European distillation combined with
the local raw material, as a metaphor
for the synthesis of the city’s cultures.
And his CVB is trying hard to distil
the perfect meetings blend, it is clear.
“We thought it was a good time to
launch a strategy to go global,” says
Staufert, who traces this serious new
ambition to winning the Pan
American Games and the bids for the
Astronautical Congress and ITU.
“We noticed we had all the furniture
to hold world class events (as well as
furniture fairs) and we wanted a
strategy to go beyond just tactics.
“We decided Europe was the main
market, a continent with strong roots
in culture, just like our city.”
Key city attractions for organisers
and business tourists, Staufert lists as:
“First, there is culture – we have
the second largest bookfair in the
world (just behind Frankfurt) and
also film festivals and music events,
including our famous mariachi
international gathering.”
Staufert invited a mariachi band from
Japan to play at the international
congress of prostheses in Kobe, where
his team made a successful bid for
Guadalajara to host in 2021.
Second, Staufert lists Guadalajara’s
silicon valley, where companies like IBM
and Hewlett Packard are actually
medium size players, dwarfed by the
investments of Intel, Continental,
Siemens and Benchmark, which all now
call Guadalajara home. Local talent is
clearly attracting them all.
“College programmes did not always
fit with what those companies needed,”
Staufert explains. “So, they asked to
design programmes for universities.
They even sponsored lecturers and
subsequently got the graduates they
needed. That is the core of their success.”
California-based engineering hub
Wizeline started in Guadalajara with
three employees in 2014. Now it employs
50,000 and is helping to attract other
start ups. The start-up’s premises used to
belong to Kodak, which is another
metaphor for the fast-changing
disruptive technology sector.
After culture and IT, Staufert
identifies sport as an important sector for
the city, due to its strong infrastructure
and government support. “Our
governors let us have the city’s stadiums
free of charge if we can bring in the big
sporting events there,” Staufert says.
The pitch for the Federation of Gay
Games (2026) is another strategy that is
bridging Guadalajara’s strengths in both
sport and the field of inclusivity.
Staufert adds that his team helped win
the World Interpride (2021) at this year’s
event in Athens.
Fifth on Staufert’s list of strong sectors
is pharma, with the 48th Union World
Conference on Lung Health in 2017 one
notable success.
Staufert
uses the local
wine mezcal
as a
metaphor for
the synthesis
of the city’s
cultures.”
Expo Guadalajara also hosted the 21st
CIAM International Congress of
Medicine Innovation in February 2019
over three days, with 7,000 attendees.
Security issues
Guadalajara has, unfortunately, been
touched by narco-related violence, so
how does Staufert and his team overcome
such a handicap?
“The drug problem should neither be
over-rated, nor downgraded,” he says.
“The aforementioned big companies
have not been deterred by this.
“Would so many foreign executives
live in Guadalajara if shootings were
taking place in the streets? Would they
be investing big time money?” he asks
rhetorically.
Decriminalising marijuana for
recreational use is one potential solution
being pursued, Staufert believes, and
emphasises the problem is not just in
Mexico, “but to do with our wealthiest
neighbour and how they consume it. It is
a multinational problem.”
Future goals
Staufert is optimistic, however, and
aiming high. “We want to become the
city of international MICE business and
certainly the capital for Latin America.
We are looking to be a central post for
arts and we are pursuing the world
digital arts congress.
He references the local talent pool
again and notes 60% of the world’s
Blackberries were made in Guadalajara.
The local native people’s tradition of
creating miniature crafts has been able to
transfer into IT hardware production.
“The Chinese even came to see how our
people could create miniature technology
devices 1.8 times faster than they could,
and then hired them for twice the salary,”
says Staufert.
Below:
Gustavo Staufert,
CEO of Guadalajara
CVB
ISSUE 103
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CONFERENCE & MEETINGS WORLD
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59