Mexico Hospitality Expo opens in Guadalajara with lower targets
The hotel and restaurant trade fair co-run by Fira de Barcelona starts its second edition on 6 October, forecasting fewer brands and meetings than it reported in 2025.
The second Mexico Hospitality Expo opens on 6 October at Expo Guadalajara and runs until 8 October. The trade fair for hotels, restaurants and cafés expects 5,000 professional visitors and more than 200 brands on 9,000 square metres.
The show is co-organised by the venue itself, Expo Guadalajara, and by Fira de Barcelona, which runs it under Hostelco, the brand of its hospitality equipment fair in Barcelona. It occupies the Jalisco A and B halls from 10:00 to 18:00 and is aimed at trade visitors. The organisers forecast that 15% of visitors will come from abroad and that more than 300 business meetings will be arranged between buyers and suppliers. Exhibitors named before the opening include American Express, Sam's Club, Makita, Engie and Bostik.
It is the second large trade fair for Latin America's food business in a fortnight: Expoalimentaria opened in Lima on 23 September with more than 700 exhibitors.
A fair that forecasts fewer brands than it reported last year is, at least, forecasting carefully.
How the Mexico Hospitality Expo figures compare with 2025
All of those numbers are projections, and two of them sit below what the organisers reported after the first edition, held from 6 to 8 May 2025. They then announced more than 5,000 visitors, more than 300 brands and 400 business meetings, according to the Guadalajara magazine Players of Life. Fira de Barcelona said at the close, in the same report, that about 2,500 of the 9,000 square metres were exhibition area.
The money is harder to pin down. Before the 2025 edition Expo Guadalajara estimated an economic impact of more than 186 million pesos. A report published by La Región Tamaulipas on 24 September put the first edition's impact at an estimated 356 million pesos. Neither figure comes with a published method, and both originate with the side that sells the floor space. AMUSE found no audited attendance count for 2025.
A restaurant trade still counting the World Cup
The fair arrives three months after a summer that did not deliver what the sector had been told to expect. Guadalajara was one of Mexico's three World Cup host cities, with Monterrey and the capital, whose street food we cover in what to eat in Mexico City. In a survey published on 9 July, the restaurant chamber Canirac found that 70% of restaurants had seen no rise in sales during the first month of the tournament, and 60% reported a worse result than in the same period a year earlier, El CEO reported.
Alongside the stands, the programme includes the fourth International Congress of Hotel Executives (CIDH) and the assembly of the Mexican Association of Hotels and Motels. Whether the Mexico Hospitality Expo matches its own 2025 numbers will be known when the organisers publish their closing count after 8 October.
