A half dozen representatives of local English and Spanish- language media, including GlobalFax, visited Monterrey, Mexico, Nov. 13-14 as part of a campaign to promote the city of seven million inhabitants as a destination for Atlanta companies as well as tourists.
The visit was sponsored by the Monterrey Convention and Visitors Bureau and AeroMexico, which has offered through a code-share agreement with Delta Air Lines three daily roundtrip flights since Sept. 1 to the city known in Mexico as the city of mountains due to its location near the Sierra Madre Oriental range.
The new route offers Atlanta companies easy access to the city for possible investment and joint venture opportunities, said Norma Hathaway, AeroMexico’s sales and marketing representative in Atlanta. But, she added, many Atlantans and Americans in general are unaware of it and often confuse it with Monterey, Calif.
Monterrey, Mexico already has a large number of large multinational companies located there including Coca-Cola, which is represented by the brewery Cuauhtemoc Moctezuma and has attracted a number of suppliers to the area.
And it is emerging as a transportation center for northern Mexico, according to Ms. Hathaway, because it is less congested and has a superior transportation system than Mexico City, the country’s capital.
Although its strengths as a commercial area are not widely known here, Monterrey’s tourist sites are even less well-known, she also said, and the journalists visited the surrounding countryside including the Garcia Caves and the museums and historic quarters in town.
Ms. Hathaway may be reached by calling (404) 767-4822. Elda Laura Cerda, tourism development manager for the Monterrey Convention and Visitors Bureau, may be reached at 1 (800) 554-5123.