This article was contributed by IMEX.
Mexico made its presence known at IMEX in Frankfurt, the global trade fair for incentive travel, meetings and events.
Through a private initiative supported by the Mexico City Tourism Board, the Quintana Roo Tourism Promotion Council and 35 companies from the MICE tourism industry, Mexican destinations, congress centers, hotels, DMCs, congress organizers and conventions were represented at the fair.
Roberto Ibarra, president of the T&C Group for Tourism and Congresses, said that compared to 2018, Mexico recorded a 4.48 percent increase in international tourists in the first quarter of 2019. This was accompanied by an 8.8 percent increase in average income from international tourism compared to the previous year.
Within 10 years, tourist arrivals at Mexican airports have doubled compared to 2009, and 74.1 million passengers were carried to Mexico in 2018.
“Sixty percent of holidaymakers and business travelers come from the neighboring United States of America,” he said. “The short distance makes Mexico a popular venue for corporate events, especially for American companies.”
He said that in 2018, around 60,000 meetings of the IT industry were held in the Jalisco region. It is precisely for this reason that the Mexican MICE sector is striving to win the European market for conventions and corporate events in Mexico and to further expand business with its European partners, he said.
The Mexican MICE industry is also growing and represented 2.5 percent of the gross domestic product last year, and has created around 1 million new jobs in Mexico.
“We want to continue to focus on the growth opportunities in this industry and invest further,” Ibarra said. “The expenses of a congress participant are around 94 percent higher than those of an average visitor, from which all participants in the tourism sector benefit. That’s why we are sticking to our policy of refunding VAT to foreign tourists.”
The Association of the Mexican MICE Industry ATR (AsociacioĢn de Turismo de Reuniones) and the Mexico City Tourism Board, together with the 35-member delegation of Mexican companies, opened the Mexico Pavilion at IMEX. A total of more than 850 events took place.
The delegation hoped to attract new business tourists with congresses, conventions and events such as the G20 summit Los Cabos or the Pan-American Games in Jalisco, as these are also of great economic importance for Mexico as a destination.
