Diverse Meetings, Lodgings Await South Of The Border
<B> Diverse Meetings, Lodgings Await South Of The Border</B>
By Frank Rosci
Meeting venues in Mexico can range from bustling cityscapes to peaceful seaside and country resorts, with Mexico City, Las Alamandas and Hacienda de San Antonio among the most distinctive and inviting sites for U.S. corporate groups.
The 1,500-acre Las Alamandas is an upscale, private and secure retreat for corporate executives in search of a spot for a group of 22 or fewer. The resort offers 11 suites in six villas, with meeting space that can include one or more of the spacious suites, as well as the 1,076-sq.-ft. La Palapa Beach Club.
Las Alamandas is a 90-minute drive from Manzanillo Airport, and there is a private airstrip at the resort capable of handling small aircraft. Room rates range from $390 to $3,198 per night until May 31, 2000.
Hacienda de San Antonio, a stately, pink manor house, sits on a 5,000-acre plantation between forested mountains and the El Cordoban River in Colima, the second smallest Mexican state. The 26-suite mansion offers several meeting venues, including the 940-sq-ft. Salon Mirador and 2,043-sq.-ft. Club Room, as well as a number of outdoor spaces. Meeting services include videoconferencing, and each suite is equipped with dataports; e-mail and Internet access are available in the administrative office.
The hacienda is located 70 miles from Manzanillo. Chauferred transfers are available from Colima, Manzanillo and Guadalajara airports, and there is a private airstrip onsite to accommodate small jets. Nightly room rates are $550 per person, $650 for two people and $1,000 for the presidential suite.
"Many corporate groups book meetings at the properties as part of a triangle experience that includes Mexico City, Puerto Vallarta and New York," said Enrico Ponce de Leon, general manager of Las Alamandas. There is frequent air service from New York and Los Angeles to Puerta Vallarta aboard Aeromexico, Mexicana, Continental and other carriers.
With the recent $52 million acquisition of the four-year-old former Crowne Plaza Reforma, Sol Melia, the Spanish hotel chain, has added Mexico City to its portfolio of key business destinations.
The five-star, 490-room hotel is undergoing a $7 million renovation to improve meeting room fixtures, lobby space and business amenities, including the addition of three "Royal Floors," the chain's club floor offering, which also will include butler service. Business amenities will include two-line phones in every room in the hotel and a business center on the lobby level that provides six workstations with Internet access.
While Sol Melia has no properties in the United States, recent additions in Caracas and Buenos Aires bring the number of its hotels in Latin America and the Caribbean to 41. By year-end, the chain also will add properties in Lima and Panama.
Elsewhere in Mexico, the new 278-room Fiesta Americana Grand Los Cabos Resort has opened on the southernmost shores of the Gulf of California in Los Cabos, Baja, Calif.
Meeting and conference space at the $90 million property, includes a ballroom with a capacity of 1,100 people, five breakout rooms, themed party showrooms and a group service center. Meeting rooms are outfitted with audiovisual equipment, lighting systems that feature remote control and time settings, and automatic screens.
Other major developments in Los Cabos include the resumption of construction on a 350-room Ritz-Carlton to open next year, and 180 new rooms at the full-service Hacienda del Mar.
Even more hotel rooms will be coming on line in the very near future, acknowledged Alfredo Rosas, president of the Los Cabos Hotel Association.