Successful Meetings - November 2009 - (Page 80)

Mexico has a wide range of water activities on both coasts that are sure to delight visitors Marvelous Mexico hile 2009 has been shaping up to be a bad year for incentive travel in general, the combination of resort-shy planners—thanks to the AIG effect—and reports of drugrelated violence has been a “double whammy” for Mexico’s incentive destinations, says Ella Messerli, vice president of marketing for the Los Cabos Convention & Visitors Bureau. And yet, Los Cabos, which, along with Cancun, gets the lion’s share of Mexico’s incentive travel business, is weathering the storm well, according to Messerli. “Bookings are flat, which is an LOW PRICES MAKE THIS SOUTH-OF-THE-BORDER SPOT A WINNER By Leo Jakobson up Mexico. The warning was issued for those five counties,” explains Eduardo Chaillo, director of strategic business for the Mexico Tourism Board. “The U.S. State Department issued a travel warning just for those counties. The rest of Mexico was completely unaffected.” That is roughly what Phil Mullins, president of Deerfield, IL-based incentive travel management company Windward International, says about Cancun—which is located in southern Mexico—a destination he’s used many times with clients. And while there was W accomplishment right now,” she says, noting that occupancy rates were actually up 3 percent in February, the month that the U.S. State Department issued a travel warning over drug gang violence along the Mexico-U.S. border. One reason is simple geography, Messerli says, noting that Los Cabos, at the bottom of the Baja Peninsula, “is 1,000 miles from the problem areas, and we have never had security problems”— a point many other Mexican incentive destinations can also make. “The situation affected five counties out of approximately 2,000 that make I SM I November 2009 I SuccessfulMeetings.com http://www.SuccessfulMeetings.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Successful Meetings - November 2009

Successful Meetings - November 2009
Contents
Editor's Letter
Spain Hosts MITM Euromed
Meetings Law
Incentive Insights
Management Matters
Mouth For Sale
Golf Meetings
Corporate Social Responsibility
Places + Spaces
International Roundup
Paris
Hong Kong
Scotland
Colombia
Mexico
London
Copenhagen
Switzerland
Las Vegas
Dallas
Boston
Bermuda

Successful Meetings - November 2009