Merida, Mexico as a tourism smart hub for all things Yucatan, is making more sense than ever these days as the UNESCO heritage metropolis prepares with impressive development plans. The “White City” that is home for nearly a million people welcomed the travel industry recently at the 45th Tianguis expo – an accomplishment after worldwide COVID lockdowns forced the skipping of the event in 2020. With Covid somewhat manageable through vaccination proofs and testing, the pre-Omicron happening at the end of November brought some 4,000 buyers and sellers together for news and business to bolster Mexico’s tourism industry as one of the few destinations that allowed Americans to travel no matter what the virus was doing.
For Merida, this has been a life-saver. Tourism contributes 14.5 percent to the pie of Yucatan’s gross domestic product. The destination proved worthy as a showpiece for Mexico. Founded in 1542 and built over the ancient Mayan city of T’hó, Merida is one of the oldest cities in the Americas, built up by Spanish conquistadors. And much of that colonial attitude remains amid colorful historic streets and alleyways, many still cobbled, and celebrations of the mingled Mayan and Spanish cultures in grand plazas, skyward cathedrals and precious inns right out of a Marquez or Allende novel.
Meeting attendees and travelers alike are rewarded for their destination choice right from the start as Merida offers an international airport (MID) around 20 minutes from town, along fast highways and well-paved roads. In a word, Merida, for all its history and cultural fullness, is also a business hub with a busy cargo and cruise ship port less than an hour away and plans to welcome an Amazon distribution center, a Tesla agency in the coming months as well as continue to maintain a busy Walmart distribution.
The shiny newly remodeled and expanded Yucatán Siglo XXI Convention Center reopened in 2020 with lots of glass and creative mise en place artwork to showcase the Mayan spirit of Merida. Two new corporate-level hotels also recently opened to offer added choice beyond the stylish, instagrammable interiors of some of the city’s legendary boutique hotels. The Camino Real and the Villa Mercedes Mérida Curio by Hilton both made their debut last November. The Camino Real near the convention center offers 129 rooms with such amenities as a gym, swimming pool, a presidential suite, restaurants, and a meeting or business room for rates starting at around $200 per night.
Hotel Villa Mercedes Mérida Curio By Hilton in Centro showcased a new lobby bar, front desk and pool areas and restaurants specializing in Italian and Japanese fare, for rates starting at around $150 per night. Add to these the Wyndham, Residence Inn, Fiesta Americana and Hyatt Regency, Hampton Inn, NH, Hilton Garden and a full burst of tony boutiques in the Old City and you have a safe city that can not only host, but accommodate in style.
While Merida does not have a beach per se (although Progreso offers an active Malecon and a wide and clean swimming beach) and does not have the same tourism points that coastal resorts toward Cancun do, it’s beauty is in its counterpoint to all that. The established capital of the Yucatan is replete with museums, art galleries, musical and dance performances, abundant food and crafts markets and even a sizable number of swank boutiques and designer shops. But Cancun is a good three hours’ drive away. Rather, visitors will hub in one destination or the other and head out on day trips to the cornucopia of attractions and adventures awaiting in between.
Among those sites is Chichen Itza, considered a wonder of the modern world, located around 90 minutes from Merida. The attraction is especially popular during the spring and fall equinox when a serpentine shadow is formed and seems to slither down the shallow stone steps of the mystical pyramid.
Uxmal is another such UNESCO-listed Maya ruin and is found a little over an hour south of Merida, confounding visitors over the centuries for its precise construction and fanciful stone carvings.
Valladolid also worth the two-hour drive to marvel at its 15th century colonial buildings that include a convent and the baroque-style San Gervasio Cathedral. Cenote Zací is a famous sinkhole pool with stalactites, joining Samulá and X’Kekén as popular cenote swimming spots.
One brand new attraction that will delight group and meeting planners as well as tourists is the Grupo Xcaret’s newest theme park, Xibalba located just outside Valladolid. The theme here is the “underworld” as Xibalba is the Mayan word for scary place, although it is anything but scary with its winding paths of rivers and cenotes carved below the tropical landscape. Visitors wade, swim, zipline, snorkel, explore a maze of dark places that shimmer in the preternatural shadows in a one of a kind experience that can also cater to large meetings with magical, voluminous dining venues serving Mayan cuisine. The park is targeting a June 2022 official opening.
Finally, visitors may have another way of traveling the Yucatan and seeing the sights if plans for the Tren Maya come to fruition. The train that loops a 1000 miles through Cancun in Quintana Roo, into Chiapas and then up into Tabasco and across Campeche and Yucatan, will have 19 stops and offer access to as many as 190 tourism attractions. The first segment will be the Quintana Roo-Yucatan-Chiapas line and could open as early as the end of this year. The project was originally announced in 2019 but had to be paused during the pandemic. A more realistic completion date for the ambitious $10 billion Mayan Train is 2024, according to reports. Currently, the train is expected to run 62 tours that will integrate 18 “Indigenous Paradises,” 28 rural communities, 14 magic towns, 46 archaeological sites, and six World Heritage Sites. Visitors to Cancun will be able to board the train at the airport. Merida will be one of the train’s key stations.
As for what to do in Merida for meeting attendees and travelers, naturally one of the top things to do is dine. The centuries-old downtown area offers a number of ambient places to manage this activity and doused with some history of this town. Thus, a top venue for dining would be Museo de la Gastronomia Yucateca in the center of the downtown area. The cavernous interiors offer access to a precious museum that explains the foods and the culinary customs of the area. On the menu are such famous dishes as Lime Soup, Cochinita Pibil, Poc Chuc, and Papadzules. Mayan food is usually made with pulled pork or turkey marinated in spices and sour orange juices and cooked slowly in a Dutch oven with banana leaf wrappings, and served on a corn tortilla. While you will find your fish tacos and cheese enchiladas here, most dining venues in Merida, be they stalls at the mercados, such as Mercado Lucas de Gálvez, or cafes on fashionable Paseo de Montejo Avenue, will offer dishes with evident influence from the Mayan ways of life.
Museums in Merida may not be as interesting as simply walking around the 400 year old streets, dipping into galleries and taking in the sights. Some of the mansions along de Montejo, such as Casa Vales, Casa del Minarete, Casa Peón de Regil and Quinta Montes Molina, offer insight into the lives of the founding families and captains of industry – usually the sisal or henequén industry that offered the necessary roping needed in building and manufacturing. Rambling haciendas in the outskirts of town, such as Hacienda Temozon and Hacienda Santa Cruz, bring the right touch for events with capacious dining set-ups and magical 18th-century estates that are now luxury collection hotels.
And Merida is not without its super-luxe resort stays, should some quiet recuperation be in order. Chablé, around 20 miles from central Merida, fills the bill with 40 private villas scattered amid upon 750 acres of Mayan forest. Each villa is a palatial affair with a private dipping pool and patio and plenty of interior room to roam, designed with plenty of light and modern minimalist touches. Wanderings will bring guests to an elaborate wellness spa around a small cenote where multi-treatment “journeys” bring the magic of shamans. There is golf, Mayan cooking classes, exquisite dining and imbibing with rare tequila collections and art is everywhere. Even when the resort is at capacity guests rarely come in contact with each other, unless they choose to at various pools, galleries or in the library.
The 18-century main house anchors the history here with hand-made tile floors, wooden beams, soaring ceilings, and an inviting veranda overlooking verdant lawns and gnarled, ancient Parota trees. The resort is a member of Small Luxury Hotels of the World. Chauffeured luxury cars bridge the distances to Merida or the airport. The peace and quiet of this jungle retreat do the rest.
Author: Lark Gould
Lark Gould has been a travel industry journalist for more than 30 years. She shares her insight on cruise travel, air travel, hotels, resorts, popular activities, attractions and destinations to assist travel advisors and travelers with the current news and information they need to travel well.
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