Bond Puts Mexico City in the Spotlight
The name of the beneficiary is Mexico – Mexico City.
New James Bond movie Spectre’s opening scenes are in Mexico City, giving that destination worldwide exposure, something that’s being welcomed by Rodrigo Esponda, who oversees the Mexico Tourism Board’s promotional efforts in Canada and the United States.
“The first five minutes of the movie are filmed in Mexico City,” he told a Toronto audience Tuesday.
And he also noted that Cirque du Soleil will have a “complete show dedicated to Mexico” next year, which will be shown in different cities.
The upcoming developments come as Mexico enjoyed a record year in 2014 with 29.1 million international visits. The previous record was 24 million.
The “last three years have been really robust,” Esponda told the gathering.
This year has also been good, with air arrivals in the January-August period up 11.4%.
Average occupancy rates for popular locales have been strong, with the Riviera Maya seeing 84%, the Riviera Nayarit 78% and Cancun well over 70%.
Richard Zarkin of the Riviera Nayarit Visitors and Conventions Office in turn told the gathering that Hurricane Patricia “gave us a very big scare” as it neared Mexico’s Pacific coast, but in the end “I think Toronto had stronger rains than we did.”
The Rivieria Nayarit is 307 km long, with Zarkin praising its diversity, noting that it includes the likes of very upscale Punta Mita and trendy Sayulita, which first made its mark as a surfing destination.
The destination – which has 15,000 hotel rooms – can easily host nature enthusiasts, having 252 endemic bird species, and whale sharks and humpback whales can be seen on a seasonal basis, he continued.
The “beach and sun destination is more than beach and sun,” Zarkin added.
Riviera Nayarit chef Betty Vazquez praised Mexican cuisine as a blend of indigenous and European influences.
“Fusion has been the thing in our country for 500 years,” she told the gathering.
Esponda in turn added that Mexican food differs markedly by region.
