Mexico is another of the destinations receiving these tourists, fuelled by moments like Netflix’s documentary about Juan Gabriel, which debuted in late 2025 to heavy fanfare, and was freely screened in Mexico City’s sprawling zocalo (the city’s main square) to over 170,000 people who sang in unison to Jumbrotron-sized videos of the late Mexican legend – as well as a younger crop of hitmakers like Christian Nodal (a Sonoran mariacheño who consistently ranks among the top 50 streamed musicians in the world with over 20 million monthly listeners). Mexico’s contemporary music reputation is thriving, and it’s driving momentous interest to not just Mexico City, but to other cities in the country with strong regional sounds like Monterrey, the nation’s third-biggest urban hub.
Prior to the arrival of the World Cup, for which the city will host several games, Monterrey will be hosting Tecate Pa’l Norte, one of the country’s largest festivals that brings together a range of generational headliners, including Mexico’s Zoé, Molotov, and Grupo Frontera, and celebrates local sounds like musica nortena and cumbia rebajada. In 2023, Billboard reported that the Coachella-aspiring festival has become the city’s “touring and economic engine,” with over 300,000 attendees once again expected for this spring’s edition. It’s not just a reason to visit Monterrey – but a showcase of the music that so distinctly embodies the destination itself.
According to organisations like Sound Diplomacy – a consultancy group founded in the UK and dedicated to bolstering local economies through music tourism – something has shifted in the kinds of tourists that are increasingly becoming interested in Latin America’s sonic fabric.
“Music shares the DNA of a place. It’s a living museum, the chronicle of a people,” says Pablo Borchi Klapp, a musician and cumbia (a LatAm music genre) tour guide in Mexico City. “Cultural tourists traditionally spend more and stay longer than average tourists. When it comes to travelling, music is the new gastronomy.” Borchi heads the international events team for Sound Diplomacy, through which he collaborates with an array of hotel advisory groups, local tourism boards, and music industry professionals to maximise parochial music into a broader gateway for travellers to engage with. For Borchi, music is a “tool for cultural preservation.” It has a storied history, too.
