Best of Vallarta 2004
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MOST Persistent and Consistent Activista:
RON WALKER
In more than 30 years here, the founder and head of Puerto Vallarta’s Ecology Association has never wavered in his commitment to protect our environment. He’s a realist who doesn’t let emotion supercede potential solutions, consistently maintaining his never-say-die approach.
“Even if you have to take two steps back now and then, it’s okay,” he says, “as long as you keep taking another one forward.”
“People in this town are chock full of apathy for many historical and political reasons. And most foreigners who come here take on the same attitude, everyone waiting for a huge government program to clean things up. Yet each and every one of us can make a difference. Start small. Buy some seeds. Grow some flowers to make your house prettier and take it from there.”





BEST Local Marketer:
MARY SUE MORRIS of Viva
Her marketing strategies are exceptional – and so is her success. Funny how that works. Here are a few of her tactics.
Advertising a lot and keeping it fresh, her strikingly designed ads big enough to have impact and their content constantly changing.
Finding the customers instead of sitting back and waiting for them to find her. Outfitted head to toe in stunning Viva fashions, her Viva Divas and Senior Divas do promotional walkabouts. Maintaining a personal relationship with each of her 750 or so designers, yet representing them only in the seasons their pieces are truly exceptional.
Looking for what’s different, interesting and fun.
Stocking a range of merchandise at a range of prices “because there are fabulous products all over the world at all different prices, and favorite things aren’t always expensive.”
Writing an upbeat weekly feature for a local newspaper that creates a personal relationship with the buying public and builds brand recognition.
Extending open invitations to frequent, fabulous parties at her store, the non-elitist approach resulting in one person who already knows the store telling another who doesn’t, who tells another and so on, they in turn promoting Viva by talking about the great time they had.
And, perhaps most important of all, always being open for business, 13 hours a day, seven days a week, even on holidays.



BIGGEST Wedding party:
DIF
Every year, come June or July, the municipal department of family services (DIF) arranges for as many people as possible to get hitched free of charge at one big communal wedding. Last summer, about 200 or so Mexican couples took advantage of this annual opportunity to change their legal status without fuss and bother. Many of them had lived together for decades, some even had grandchildren. And that’s exactly why the government is only too happy to provide the wedding cake. Running a city is a lot easier when economic units are ‘regularized’ and offspring properly registered.




BIGGEST Sale for a Home and a Lot:
HACIENDA CORAL

How can a home claim both the highest price for a home sold last year and also the highest price for a lot? Easy, you simply buy the home for $3.5 million, tear it down until there is only raw land left, and you now have a lot you paid $3.5 million for (or a little more after demolition expenses). And that’s exactly what the new owner did with the one-year-old Hacienda Coral, a home situated on the beach in Punta Mita. Residents of the nearby community of Emiliano Zapata were invited to help themselves to any of the woodwork or materials used in the home before it was leveled to make way for a new and much larger home soon to begin construction.




BEST Window Display:
PARTY LAND

Boasting the most vividly playful window in town, Party Land is one of 16 Mexican franchises of a Chicago-based company with 350 stores worldwide.
Both its name and tag line, “Where fun parties begin,” indicate that this is where you can find much of what you need to throw a fabulous fiesta. Popular movie characters predominate as themes for your bash, Brother Bear, Nemo, Batman, Cinderella and others on costumes, piñatas, hats, balloons, tablecloths, serviettes, plates, cups, glasses, candles, wrapping paper, you name it. Oh, and even the invitations.