WTE Miami 2023: The Roadmap Drawn by San Miguel de Allende 

Q & A with Tania Castillo, Municipal Director of Tourism of San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, within the framework of WTE Miami 2023.

This is the first edition of WTE, what motivated you to participate in this fair?

San Miguel de Allende is a major market for the American market. 10% of the population of San Miguel de Allende are American residents, and especially California and Texas are our two main markets. Since last year we are seeing a positioning also from Florida, and that is why we are here. 

We also have a twinning with West Palm Beach, so it didn't come out of the blue, everything takes some planning. We have to see what we want and where we are going. People usually visit San Miguel de Allende when it is summer season in Florida, because here the heat is very strong and they are going to spend 6 months in our city. That is why we have seen an upturn in Florida, so we want to have a presence here.

San Miguel de Allende was honored as a City of Excellence at the Magic Awards given by the Excelencias Group. 

Yes, and we're very excited. Many media have given San Miguel de Allende certain awards, and the last one was precisely the City of Excellence award you gave us. 

San Miguel de Allende is a world heritage city; in 2008 we were awarded the designation for two of our historical monuments. One is Atotonilco, which is like the Sistine Chapel of Mexico; and for our traditional parish that we have in San Miguel de Allende. 

But what we want is to invite you to get to know not only what everyone knows, which is the parish, but also to let you know that there is much more around the city. 

San Miguel is known for its hospitality, for its gastronomy, but we also invite you to get to know the new vineyards we have -more than 40 vineyards in the region and 11 in San Miguel de Allende-. 

Wine tourism is something in which we now want to position ourselves, one of our objectives for 2023. Last year we were also named best wedding destination. So San Miguel de Allende is a little bit of everything, it has romance tourism, adventure tourism, business tourism, wine tourism? 

How is the connectivity?

In San Miguel de Allende we have two nearby airports, Queretaro and El Bajio, just 1 hour away by car. We have four daily flights from Houston to Queretaro and from Houston to El Bajio; or you can also arrive via Dallas. 

Connectivity is very important, because San Miguel de Allende is located in the heart of Mexico, it is in the center of the country. Then there are also more connections, you can also fly to Mexico City and make a 3-hour trip to San Miguel de Allende. 

What are the business expectations for this fair?

Above all, that people get to know the destination, that we are not only a weekend tourist destination; we are also a cultural destination, a destination of traditions, of music. Our goal is to give the visitor and the tourist one more reason to visit us again. 

So, not only do we want them to go, eat well, stay in one of the best hotels, but we want them to have an experience. There will always be some tradition, concert, culture... That is our goal, to have quality tourism, because people can appreciate all the little details that we work on every day. 

You told me that 10% of the population is settled in the U.S., is it also in Miami?

We also have people in Miami. San Miguel de Allende is still a small city, we are 175,000 inhabitants, and 10% is a foreign community. We have people from Colorado, Florida, California, Texas, from many places in the US; but also from Europe, Colombia or Canada. It is a very cosmopolitan city because we have more than 63 nationalities living in San Miguel; a very large foreign community and very accepted by the locals. 

And, above all, the people who come to San Miguel de Allende are people who like to support, so they are people who join and support the locals; they do their bit. In San Miguel de Allende, the people who go there are reborn; many go with the idea of retiring there, and when they arrive in San Miguel it is like a second wind, because they open a gallery or a restaurant, and there they include their culture. This gives rise to a very important variety and diversity of gastronomy. 

How important is the market, not only for San Miguel, but for Guanajuato?

We say that San Miguel de Allende is the oasis that represents Guanajuato, we are the ambassador of Guanajuato to the world. San Miguel de Allende is within the State of Guanajuato, we are a total of 46 municipalities, and this means that there is a great diversity. 

San Miguel de Allende is the state's tourist destination par excellence, but we also have Leon, which is more focused on business, or different municipalities more oriented towards handicrafts. So, we have a diversity that you can find in different parts of the state; and above all the connectivity issue, that in half an hour you can visit other municipalities and take a little bit of everything with you. 

Do you plan to carry out more promotional activities or participation in events of this type in the U.S. during the remainder of 2023?

Yes, we have two more participations. Last year one of our objectives was to position San Miguel internationally, so we made a twinning with Aspen, in Colorado, and this year we are going again because we had a good relationship with them and acceptance of the Colorado market in San Miguel de Allende. 

And we will also go to New York, a city just as cosmopolitan as San Miguel; we have a good relationship with the consulate there, and because of how well we did last year, we want to go again. And, above all, because it is not only like the time or the awards we always get, but we are focusing on the union of all the guilds, sectors, hotel, gastronomic... When we go somewhere, we go with our whole entourage. That is what is important, the integration in San Miguel. 

And the MICE sector, how are you handling it?

As San Miguel, in the end, our 83% of the gross domestic product comes from tourism, and we are generally full from Thursday to Sunday, we are free on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. That is where the MICE sector comes in, last year we were the municipality with the highest attraction of foreign investment. 

Also last year we announced that we were going to have a World Trade Center, with its convention center; we just inaugurated another convention center. 

In the end, we are going that way; above all, several national and international companies hold their congresses in San Miguel de Allende. We occupy those days of low tourist demand so that the whole week has movement in the destination.