It’s been a long time coming, but the luxury hotel scene in Mexico City now has another addition: luxurious boutique hotel Las Alcobas.

I met with one of the owners of Las Alcobas almost exactly a year ago. At that point the hotel was quite far along and the lobby furniture had already been delivered. It looked like only a matter of weeks until the doors would open and guests would arrive.

Alas, Mexico got hit with a triple whammy of woes after that and they decided it was not the best of times to make a big splash and take a huge risk of opening an empty hotel. Not too many visitors were intrepid enough to land in Mexico City when the whole H1N1 scare broke out.

Thankfully, we’re a year closer to better times and Las Alcobas has opened its doors. Designed by Yabu Pushelberg in a style best described as Mad Men meets Milan, it’s chic, organic, and enticing, with a style like nothing else in the city. With just 35 rooms and a personal concierge at your beck and call, this is the place to land if you want to rub shoulders with the rich and famous in Mexico City’s ritzy neighborhood of Polanco.

See our full review of Las Alcobas luxury boutique hotel then click over to their website listed at the end to see more photos and check opening special rates.

When most travelers think of the Los Cabos area, they think of big splashy beach resorts, glitzy spas, and huge pool complexes. Casa Natalia is not one of those. For us “luxury” is about attentive service and a sense of place as much as it is about amenities and glamor, so we’re happy to get a review up of this fine boutique hotel in San Jose del Cabo.

“Casa Natalia celebrated its first decade in 2009, yet many Cabo regulars are unaware of its presence. It’s not on one of Cabo’s many unswimmable beaches (Los Cabos is a beach resort with few safe places to play in the water). There aren’t any rowdy nightclubs or chain restaurants in the neighborhood. Instead, Casa Natalia anchors the increasingly gentrified historic disrict of downtown San José del Cabo.”

This little hideaway has only 16 rooms and suites, but has a restaurant that earns raves and with a no-children-under-13 policy, it’s a romantic retreat as well. See our full review here: Casa Natalia in San Jose del Cabo.

Anyone who has been to Cancun and Playa del Carmen in the past couple years has witnessed first-hand the effects of overbuilding, reef degradation, and multiple hurricane hits. Some of this is just natural beach erosion, some of it has been hastened by dumb building and environmental practices.

After lots of promises, the local governments have put beach restoration in high gear though. They already dumped multiple tons of sand on Cancun’s beaches and you can see the effects here in this quickie video from the Cancun Tourism board.

The trucks will soon go to work in Playa del Carmen as well, with beach widening going on for a 2.7-mile stretch. I’m assuming that includes the Playacar resort area as the beaches north of Playa del Carmen are not in such bad shape. Some small craft docks are going up in the center as well, giving boats a place to tie up so they don’t have to be dragged on and off the beach every time. There’s nothing much that can be done now about the wall of concrete too close to the shore, but I guess they can do this all over again in a few years if another hurricane comes.

UPDATE – Here’s a nice before and after shot in front of the Ritz-Carlton Cancun

See detailed reviews of the best luxury hotels in Cancun and Playa del Carmen

Puebla, Mexico is the home of Talavera pottery and is a major business center that has almost become one with Mexico City as both have sprawled. Unfortunately, it’s not been a city known for fine hotels.

There’s one bright spot we’re glad to highlight, however. A few years back the designer hotel company Grupo Habita turned an ice factory building into hotel La Purificado and suddenly there was a happening place in Puebla to see and be seen. Habita Group’s hotels aren’t for everyone, but if you’re into design done well and like to hang out where the cool people are, you can’t go wrong in places like Condesa df in Mexico City.

This hotel is also aimed at the fashion set and has one of those maddening websites that’s set up like a puzzle for you to solve, so good luck finding what you need on there. Thankfully we’ve got a detailed review of La Purificadora posted now so you can read details about it instead of just getting pretty pictures. Well, they let us borrow a few pretty pictures of it for you as well.

See other luxury hotels in Mexico.

If you put cash into the U.S. market or in European funds early in 2009, you had a very good year for that money.

But if you put cash to work in Latin America, you had an especially good reason to pop the bubbly on New Year’s Eve. According to this Wall Street Journal article, Latin America was the standout region of the world in 2009 for investors. “Mexico’s IPC index approached all-time highs in December and Argentina’s benchmark index more than doubled.”

As in the rest of the world, this didn’t come without a roller coaster ride though. The MSCI Latin America Index rose 98% on the year, which looks huge until you realize that it went down 53% the year before. So if you were in that market at the beginning of 2008, you are pretty much back to even unless you were actively moving the investments around.

Here’s how a few markets did in 2009:

Argentina +115%
Brazil +82.7%
Colombia +53.5%
Chile 50.7%
Mexico +43.5%
Canada +30.7%
USA (Dow) +18.8%