Today we’d like to introduce you to Alessandra Perez-Cirera.
Hi Alessandra, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I started La Palomilla by mixing heart, hustle, and a gut belief that hospitality can change a city block (and maybe more than a few minds). After 23 years leading brand and PR events across entertainment (like marketing at Netflix and the HBO Max launch in LATAM), I exchanged red carpets for craftmanship and opened a seven room, woman owned boutique hotel in Mexico City’s Roma/Condesa that unites design, zero plastic habits, and home made really good breakfasts with curated, give back to the community experiences. We’re a small property, but with a lot of heart. We’re local by design. We buy and offer local and homemade as well as 5 star hospitality. This year, we were chosen to proudly be a part of Amadeus’ Travel4Impact network with IE University. We are the only business in Mexico, the US and Canada to be part of this amazing initiative. Guests come for the “feel at home vibe” as well as the good reviews and the “big sister in Mexico” offer. They leave with fun market stories, cooking techniques, and a new favorite neighborhood. I look forward to continue learning and to grow our impact and our reach around the world.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Operating La Palomilla has been more like a rocky road in a windstorm. We opened just months before the 2017 earthquake, survived borders closing with Covid, and even hosted a heroic “week without water” in Mexico City (try running a B&B like a desert camp 🙂 (spoiler: we did and nobody noticed there was a water shortage). Bureaucracy in Mexico is its own endurance sport, and relying on U.S. travelers while fighting splashy negative headlines hasn’t helped. This is my personal enterprise, so every peso that comes in our out is a bet. And yet, I wouldn’t have put my savings anyplace else. The payoff is amazing and I have never regretted a second of running this beautiful business. La Palomilla means jobs that became careers, support for local women and seven families that work full time, local suppliers who grew with us, guests who arrived skeptical and left as part of our “Palomilla” or group of friends, and a Roma/Condesa block that feels a little kinder, greener, and more connected. Mexico City is extraordinary and mind blowing. Its creative, delicious, welcoming, and yes, safe when you move like a local.
La Palomilla is proof: small, constant, and deeply hopeful about the lives we’ve already changed.. and the many more we will as long as we keep treking.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
La Palomilla is a seven room, woman owned boutique hotel in the Roma-Condesa neighborhood in Mexico City. It feels like a stylish home base with a heavy concierge focus.
Guests talk about the delicious Mexican breakfasts, the warm team, and a walk everywhere location. They also talk about the home away from home feel and the attention to detail.
Purpose is our operating system. We source locally, avoid single use plastic, and build itineraries that move money to street markets, artisans, guides, and women led businesses, leaving the money in the neighborhood and sustaining many families.
La Palomilla BNB has been profiled for my story and service ethos in outlets that highlight the leap from entertainment to hospitality and the commitment to community centered travel.
Within the Travel for Impact network by Amadeus and IE University, our framework focuses on two engines. First, upskilling women on our team and in our supplier circle through English practice, service training, and pathways to leadership. Second, strengthening local value chains by curating guest experiences that feature neighborhood artisans, markets, and makers so that each stay funds real people and real culture.
Review roundups and city guides describe La Palomilla as intimate, design forward, and a smart choice for travelers who want personal guidance and an easy launch pad for museums, parks, and restaurants.
The headline is simple. Come for comfort and care. Leave with stories, friendships, and the knowledge that your trip made a positive mark on Mexico City, its women and you´re taking a little part of Mexican hospitality with you.
We love surprises, fun facts and unexpected stories. Is there something you can share that might surprise us?
Every second counts for me. Every trip I take, every post I share for La Palomilla, and every article I read about Mexico pushes me to do better for our guests. I genuinely care about everyone who stays with us, and my team is just the best in its class. I am always looking for new ways to give back to the guests, my team and to my country.
It still surprises me how my 23 years in entertainment at Televisa, CNN, Netflix, and HBO Max prepared me to build my own business with the same passion and energy I once poured into those brands. It is important to know that the things I once judged in myself, like not acing a TV interview or not being perfect in a meeting, are actually my edge. The human factor, my improvisation, and my creative personality are exactly what make La Palomilla so charming, because it is unapologetically me. I am very proud of that. Now, all that drive lives at La Palomilla, where purpose and hospitality show up with your morning chilaquiles.
Pricing:
- Rates start at 129 usd per night
Contact Info:
- Website: https://lapalomillabnb.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lapalomillabnb/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lapalomillabnb/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alessandracirera/
Image Credits
Cacá Santoro
