From Jorge

This week’s Wake-Up Call looks at the forces powering Mexico’s momentum right now. From trade dynamics shaping how and where development happens, to global hotel brands deepening their commitment, to entertainment showing up as a serious economic engine, the common thread is confidence. Growth isn’t slowing, it’s maturing, becoming more intentional, more sophisticated, and full of opportunity for those paying attention.

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Subject of the Week

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This week, I took a closer look at Mexico’s newly approved tariffs on Asian imports, and while it may sound like a trade-policy issue meant for boardrooms and factories, the real impact is headed somewhere far more familiar: Mexico’s tourist corridors. Mexico has approved tariffs of up to 50% on hundreds of imported products, many of them essential to building hotels, condos, and resort infrastructure. Through a financial lens, this isn’t abstract economics; it’s the cost of steel, glass, fixtures, and finishes quietly rising in places like Los Cabos, Vallarta, Mazatlán, and Rocky Point.

Here’s the tension: coastal development in Mexico relies heavily on imported materials, especially from Asia, because they’re efficient, specialized, and competitively priced. The new tariffs don’t stop construction, but they squeeze margins and stretch timelines. Developers either absorb higher costs, pass them along, or slow things down while they hunt for alternatives. Nearshoring is the headline goal, but for non-export sectors like tourism and residential development, the transition isn’t seamless; it’s expensive.

The paradox is that Mexico’s most successful growth zones may feel this first. When materials cost more, projects become more selective, prices inch upward, and investors sharpen their pencils. That doesn’t kill development, but it reshapes it. And while trade policy is being used as leverage ahead of larger negotiations, beachfront projects don’t negotiate; they adapt.

Why it matters: if you follow Mexico’s resort markets, this is one of those quiet policy shifts that doesn’t make headlines at the beach, but ends up embedded in room rates, HOA budgets, and sale prices. The shoreline may look the same, but the math behind it just changed.

Your take: Does Mexico’s coastal boom power through higher costs, or does it finally slow enough for discipline to matter?

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Most people don’t read their fideicomiso. Not because they’re careless, but because it’s long, technical, in Spanish, and usually delivered at a moment when keys, utility transfers, and moving plans feel far more urgent than clauses and subsections. Fair enough.

The issue is that months or years later, when you do need answers, that same document suddenly becomes very important… and very uncooperative.

That gap, between owning a property and actually understanding what’s on paper, is where the Mini-Scan comes in.

What the Mini-Scan Is (and what it isn’t)

Think of the Mini-Scan like the warning lights on your car’s dashboard.

It doesn’t rebuild the engine.
It doesn’t replace a full inspection.
But it tells you quickly and clearly whether something deserves a closer look.

You upload a PDF copy of your fideicomiso or title, and we do a fast, structured review focused on the basics:

You get a short, readable overview. No legal gymnastics. No commitment. Just a glimpse.

And yes - it’s free.

Why free? Because guessing is expensive

After years of reviewing titles, here’s a pattern that repeats itself:
most problems don’t come from negligence; they come from assumptions.

“I’m sure it’s fine.”
“The notary handled it.”
“It closed years ago, so it must be okay.”

Sometimes that’s true. Sometimes it isn’t.

The Mini-Scan exists to replace assumptions with a first look. Nothing more, nothing less. It lets you peek behind the curtain before deciding whether you want the full story.

Where Onsite Analytics enters the picture

This is where the roles are clear.

Onsite Analytics is the start of the show.
That’s the full review, structured, documented, explained, and designed to give you real peace of mind about what you own and how it’s set up.

The Mini-Scan answers one question:

“Is this worth digging into?”

If the Mini-Scan comes back clean, great, you’ve confirmed your gut feeling.
If it raises questions, then Onsite Analytics is the natural next step, not out of fear, but out of clarity.

A small favor to your future self

Title issues rarely announce themselves. They wait quietly, until a sale, a refinance, an inheritance, or a bank request forces the conversation.

The Mini-Scan gives you a chance to listen early.

It’s free.
It’s fast.
And it gives you just enough visibility to decide whether you want the full picture.

If you already have a PDF of your title, you’re a few minutes away from knowing more than most property owners ever do.

And if you don’t have it handy yet? That, too, is useful information.

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Let’s start with the obvious elephant in the room: the Super Bowl halftime controversy. The NFL’s decision to put Bad Bunny on the world’s biggest sports stage sparked noise almost instantly. I’m not going to get into politics here; that’s not the point, and honestly, it misses the bigger story. Strip away the commentary, and what’s left is something much more concrete: this is a business decision rooted in audience, economics, and scale, not ideology

From a pure numbers standpoint, the NFL knows exactly what it’s doing. Bad Bunny isn’t a niche artist; he’s one of the most listened-to performers on the planet, with over 80 million monthly listeners on Spotify, and Latino viewership is the fastest-growing segment of the NFL audience. The league has already seen what happens when Latin artists touch the Super Bowl stage: in 2020, halftime music sales jumped more than 1,000% in a single day, and viewership ticked up as well. That’s not culture wars, that’s reach, eyeballs, and revenue. The Super Bowl isn’t just a game; it’s the largest entertainment platform on Earth, and the NFL is simply expanding the tent.

Now bring that same lens south of the border, and the story gets even clearer. Bad Bunny’s recent concert run in Mexico City isn’t just entertainment, it’s an economic event. Eight shows generated an estimated 3,228 million pesos (about $177 million USD) in economic spillover, with hotel occupancy topping 90%, hundreds of thousands of visitors, and spending rippling through restaurants, transport, and local businesses.

This is the same dynamic we see with the Super Bowl: large-scale entertainment acts as a temporary engine for tourism, hospitality, and citywide revenue. Mexico’s growing role as a global concert destination isn’t accidental, it’s the result of demand, infrastructure, and an audience that shows up.

So here’s my personal take. Entertainment is not politics. It’s meant to be a shared moment, a pause from the noise (not in a concert), not another line drawn in the sand. Whether it’s a Super Bowl halftime show or a sold-out stadium in Mexico City, these events are about celebration, connection, and economic energy, bringing people together for a few hours under the same lights. If we start treating entertainment as something that divides instead of unites, we’re missing the whole point of why people gather in the first place.

Your take: are these global events cultural statements, or simply proof that entertainment, like economics, follows the audience?

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This week I read an analysis that puts hard numbers behind something we already feel on the ground: Mexico is no longer just part of Spanish hotel groups’ portfolios,  it’s the engine. For Barceló, Latin America (led by Mexico and the Dominican Republic) generated over 70% of the group’s total EBITDA in 2019, a staggering concentration of profitability by any standard. RIU’s commitment is just as telling: roughly 40% of its entire global hotel inventory is located in Mexico and Central America, and nearly 90% of its hotels worldwide are owned, with Mexico sitting firmly at the center of that ownership strategy

What’s striking is how different strategies converge on the same conclusion. Barceló runs an asset-light model in Europe and Asia, but in Mexico, it flips the switch and owns its core properties outright, betting on long-term value and cash flow. RIU takes this even further: 100% ownership in the region and a strict reinvestment cycle, refurbishing every hotel every 10–12 years to protect brand standards. These aren’t short-term plays; they’re balance-sheet decisions that assume Mexico will remain a top global tourism destination for decades.

Why does this matter beyond the hotel logos? Because this level of capital commitment raises the floor for Mexico’s tourist zones. Continuous reinvestment, larger and more specialized resorts, and competition between giants push up service standards and inevitably influence nearby real estate values, employment, and infrastructure. When companies are willing to lock billions into owned assets instead of flexible management contracts, it’s a signal worth paying attention to. Spain’s biggest hotel groups aren’t hedging their bets in Mexico; they’re doubling down.

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