Destination Mexico - Mexican Riviera

Our client chose Eclipse to design and manage their International Distributor Conference again this year, having successfully organised the event in Thailand 2006. We had set ourselves a hard target to beat, but we rose to the challenge and created an exciting and innovative delegate program that ran over three days in February this year.

After only a 45 minute transfer from Cancun Airport, sixty five delegates from across the globe arrived at the fairytale Fairmont Mayakoba hotel in the Mexican Riviera. As guests entered the lobby to welcome drinks, they were pleasantly surprised with the magical views over the vast white sandy private beach. It was clear that this was no ordinary hotel and signalled the beginning of an exciting 3 days for us all in Mexico.

On checking in to their private waterside casitas, guests discovered their branded Welcome Bag, containing luxury Mexican hamper, event information, Mexican hat and lots of fun material to decorate the hat with – which was for the hat competition at the welcome dinner that evening.

As guests arrived at the Isla Event Lawn to the sounds of the 10 piece Mariachi band, they knew that welcome drinks reception was going to be fun! The hat creations were fantastic and some delegates were really resourceful, going to great lengths to make their hat the best in the competition.

The Lawn looked really dramatic as the sun went down and the combination of the flaming torches with the live Mayan barbeque, made the evening really fun. Custom designed coloured margarita and caipriña cocktails in the corporate colours also added a touch of Mexicana to the evening, and added to the enjoyment of the huge Piñata - that caused endless amusement throughout the night as guests were blindfolded and encouraged to take part in its destruction as they were showered in Mexican sweets!

The Fairmont Mayakoba was a real winner as far as conference destinations go. The newly built Riviera Ballroom was redesigned, dressed, set and created by the in house team J&S Audio, who gave us 100% of their attention and focus each day. A stylish set was created, in sync with the corporate identity and the look and feel was slick and modern. The interactive presentations were amusing and interesting as they were interlinked with sound and animation. As a result, the two conference days were a great success.

After the presentations, guests got to experience the ‘real Mexico’ in the afternoon off site activities they had chosen via the online registration event website. The options were excursion to Tulum, a pre-Columbian Mayan walled city, Maroma beach ATV bikes and speedboat activities and shopping trip to Playa del Carmen, the local town situated only 15 mins away.

Offsite dinners included Mayan warrior fire performance and gala dinner in Alux, an underground network of ancient caves. A rock stairway lit by candles lead guests down into an unforgettable setting, dining at tables surrounded by million year old stalactites and strange rock formations of pale shades of violet, blue, and pink.

On the final day of the Conference, guests also enjoyed a special farewell dinner in the beautiful Grand Casita, by the private beach in the hotel. Champagne and canapés were served to the beats of local Mexican drummers, followed by a gourmet ‘surf and turf’ dinner menu, which was served whilst guests looked down onto the beach for an impressive live fire performance show on the sand.