Why Rich Travellers Now Stay in Mexico City
Updated: 19 minutes ago
For years, Mexico City was a place wealthy travellers flew over. They landed, changed planes and kept going to the beach. Los Cabos, Punta Mita, Tulum.
That's changing. Concierges who plan trips for very rich clients say the same thing: the people who used to ask for Los Cabos now ask for the capital. They want the galleries, the restaurants and a few days in a city that feels like nowhere else. One Mexico City concierge put it simply: going to Los Cabos feels like going to the US.
The numbers behind it
Mexico City expected around 15.5 million hotel guests in 2025, about 5% more than the year before. That makes it one of the most visited cities in Latin America.
Volume alone doesn't make a city a luxury destination, though. What changed is the reason to come. Three things did most of the work.
First, the food. Pujol opened in 2000, when nobody in the city served mole with fine-dining rigour. It now holds two Michelin stars, given when the Michelin Guide arrived in Mexico in 2024. Contramar, Gabriela Cámara's seafood place, is the other table people fly in for.
Then the art. Zona Maco, the fair held every February, brings in collectors from the US and Europe, and new galleries keep opening. Travellers now ask for gallery tours because they've started buying.
And now the shopping. Cartier, Tiffany & Co. and Carolina Herrera have all staged big events in the city, and local designers count stars like Dua Lipa among their clients.
The hotels that changed the stay
The Four Seasons on Paseo de la Reforma has been the safe choice for a long time, built around a garden courtyard with a fountain. Its bar, Fifty Mils, is one of the places locals actually go.
What's new is the small hotel that feels like a private house. These are the two I'd watch.
Casa Polanco
Casa Polanco opened in 2022 in a restored 1940s mansion facing Lincoln Park, in Polanco, one of the city's smartest neighbourhoods. There are only 19 rooms and suites, each one designed differently, with walnut floors, handmade textiles and Mexican art.
Its restaurant, La Veranda, is for hotel guests only, so the dining room never fills with outsiders. The hotel will also cook a private dinner for you there. Pujol is close by.
El Cortés
El Cortés is new, and it's a Relais & Châteaux. It sits in a 1915 Art Nouveau house in Roma Norte, the neighbourhood of wide avenues, galleries and bars.
There are 15 rooms and suites, and the walls are hung with the owner's own art, tapestries and family portraits. The owner, hotelier Carlos Zaragoza, grew up travelling the world and staying in hotels with his family, and it shows. The rooms have traditional Talavera tiles and open onto balconies or small terraces covered in pink bougainvillea.
Downstairs is Lotti, run by Swiss chef Luc Liebster. Before Mexico he cooked at a three-star restaurant in Vienna, then at Pujol. His menu mixes Swiss dishes with Mexican ingredients.
My take
A city becomes a real luxury destination when its small hotels feel like someone's home. Big hotels can be anywhere. A 15-room house in Roma full of the owner's paintings can only be in Mexico City.
That's also why I think this lasts. People don't fly in for a lobby. They come for a table at Pujol, an afternoon of galleries and a room that tells them where they are. The beach will always be there, but a beach week is the same in Cabo or in Miami. Five days in Mexico City aren't.
The city has grown fast, and some neighbourhoods have changed with it. Pick a small hotel in Polanco or Roma and you get the best of both, a quiet street and the whole city at the door.
If you're planning ahead, these are the new luxury hotels opening before Christmas 2026. And if you want to know why the same room can have two prices, read how private hotel rates work.
Would you swap a beach week for five days in a big city?
Written by Mirko La Rosa, founder of Luxintravels. He has reviewed luxury hotels from the inside for more than ten years, and he slept in every hotel reviewed on this site. More about Mirko.
