The Mexico Chapter of MPI held its largest annual congreso (convention) ever June 2-5, and that mere attendance fact shows how strongly and successfully MPI members responded to a potentially existential challenge to the meeting industry in Mexico just six months ago.

In December, newly appointed Tourism Minister Miguel Torruco announced that the Tourism Promotion Council of Mexico (CPTM), the entity that funded Mexico’s tourism board—which had more than 20 offices in major cities around the world and also provided matching funding to individual destination marketing organizations (DMOs) to promote their cities and regions—would be shut down quickly. This was a policy decision of newly-elected Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

At first meeting professionals expressed dismay and shock, but then they quickly got going on responding to the challenge, and MPI Mexico became the key catalyst for the meeting industry’s rebound and growth that goes beyond Mexico itself, but potentially into all of Latin America.

And the growth of MPI Mexico makes a good measurement of how meeting professionals can respond to a strategic challenge quickly.

“They had well over 200 people in attendance at the Mexico Chapter’s 13th Annual Congreso, which is 60 or 80 more than they had the year before,” said MPI Chief Operations Officer Darren Temple, who spoke at the event and met with Torruco, who also attended. “The Mexico Chapter membership has doubled in size in the last year. MPI just opened a new chapter in the Cancun area of Mexico, the MPI Caribe Chapter, with more than 50 members.”

Temple, who has been to Latin America eight times in the past year to show support and work with MPI members and other meeting professionals, sees 2019 and beyond as an opportunity to grow the MPI brand throughout Latin America. He said MPI membership is showing its biggest growth in Latin America right now.

And he credits the leadership of MPI Mexico Chapter President Michel Wohlmuth and the team Wohlmuth has been assembling in Mexico and beyond.

Wohlmuth is a veteran planner who is CEO of Mexico City-based Creatividad, a successful meeting and event planning company.

Both Wohlmuth and Temple said they were impressed by the strong industry turnout at the La Paz Congreso and the fact that Torruco attended.

“This is the first major meetings industry congreso that the tourism minister has attended since the closure of CPTM, and his presence at the La Paz event is very encouraging,” Wohlmuth said. “It was a very important sign for the meetings industry that we have the support of the government through the tourism minister of Mexico, after the problems that we had after losing CPTM. We not only had the tourism minister of Mexico, we also had the governor of Baja California Sur and we also had the tourism minister of Baja California Sur, and we had an official who represents all the tourism ministers of all the states of Mexico, and that was of course a very important sign of support.  That was a very important message for us that the government is supporting our industry.”

Wohlmuth, who will become the chair of a newly created MPI Latin American Advisory Council in July, said it was also key that Temple attended the La Paz event.

“We were very happy to have Darren Temple in Mexico again. He has given us great support throughout this year. We are very happy with the support we are receiving from MPI,” Wohlmuth said.

Temple, who recently was in Bogata, Columbia, in support of the creation of a new MPI chapter in that South American country, said he attended the La Paz conference in part to show appreciation for the great work Wohlmuth and his cohorts have been doing in 2019.

“My reasons for being at the La Paz Congress were, No. 1, to say thank you to the board and others involved with the MPI Mexico Chapter to help grow MPI in the region and make membership there double in size,” Temple said. “No. 2 was to talk about MPI and what has going on globally, and No. 3 was to have some conversations with the Mexican Government officials.”

When the Mexico Tourism Board, which pumped millions of dollars into marketing for leisure travel and also meetings in Mexico over a period of decades, shuttered its doors in most of the offices it had operated around the world, Wohlmuth and others in the industry said it appeared that private, industry-based support would have to fill the void.

Now, Wohlmuth said, that appears to be happening. He said it was a little sketchy and disorganized at first, but by the time IMEX in Frankfurt rolled around, the Mexican meeting industry had a well-organized presence there.

“And I am sure the same thing will happen at IMEX America in Las Vegas,” he said.

Both Wohlmuth and Temple say they see a great opportunity for MPI chapters to be created in Costa Rica, Ecuador, Columbia, Peru, Argentina and other Latin countries.

“I am thrilled to have Michel as chairman of the Latin American Advisory Council; it will allow him to continue to have a leadership role in how we grow MPI in the region,” Temple said.

Eduardo Chaillo, past president of the Mexico Chapter who spent years as the Mexico Tourism Board’s U.S. market meeting industry representative in Washington, D.C., said at the time of the demise of tourism board that he was optimistic that it was not the end of a vibrant Mexican meeting industry, but a new phase.

Now he says he sees that happening.

Chaillo said he was encouraged with what Torruco said when he spoke at the La Paz congreso of MPI.

“I was encouraged, because he really gets it in terms of the relevance of the meetings industry impact--the tourism minister  knows that the average meeting attendee brings a bigger expenditure vs. the average leisure traveler, and also that the meetings happen throughout the year, while leisure travel largely happens only in a specific vacation season. He understands that. So he is prioritizing the meetings segment. He expressed that when he met with Darren Temple.”

Wohlmuth said he expects to see more progress to occur in August at a National Meetings Industry Congress in Los Cabos, when meeting industry executives and key national and state tourism ministers will be present.