Puerto Vallarta attractions and businesses earned prime spots in Mexico Desconocido’s Lo Mejor de Jalisco 2025 tourism awards.
Puerto Vallarta is stepping into awards season with a full slate of contenders. Local projects and personalities are competing in several categories of the Lo Mejor de Jalisco 2025 tourism awards, a new state-level program that recognizes standout experiences across Jalisco. From a mountain adventure park and a jungle botanical garden to high-end hotels, signature restaurants and a specialist wedding planner, the nominations show how wide the city’s tourism offer has become.
The awards follow a three-stage process. First, travelers and residents across Jalisco submitted thousands of nominations in late October, highlighting their favorite experiences, hotels and tourism professionals in more than twenty categories. Those suggestions were then narrowed into shortlists. Since early November, the finalists have been facing a public vote that runs through 23 November, ahead of a 3 December awards ceremony in Zapopan.
Puerto Vallarta’s strongest early story is in adventure and sustainability. Canopy River, an ecotourism park in the hills above the city, is nominated as one of the state’s top adventure activities. The attraction is known for zip-line circuits, off-road vehicle tours and guided routes that move visitors through the Sierra Madre without clearing the forest, an approach it highlights in its own environmental messaging. The same project appears again, this time alongside the Vallarta Botanical Garden, in the category that rewards sustainable and innovative tourism projects.
The botanical garden brings serious credentials into that race. Located south of the city along Highway 200, it protects native forest and showcases regional and exotic plant collections. The garden has already received an international Garden of Excellence award and has appeared in rankings of the best botanical gardens in North America, giving extra weight to its new state-level nomination.
Puerto Vallarta tourism awards
Beyond jungles and rivers, the Puerto Vallarta tourism awards story runs through the city’s hotel scene. Casa Kimberly, once the linked homes of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, is shortlisted as a boutique hotel. Today it operates as a small luxury property with nine suites, a pool, spa and open-air dining spaces, turning a piece of Hollywood history into a high-end escape above the city’s historic center.
Hacienda San Angel carries the flag in the luxury lodging category. Perched above the cobblestone streets with views over the bay and cathedral, the property brings together several restored villas around pools, gardens and intimate terraces. Booking platforms and hotel guides describe it as a romantic boutique hotel with a strong focus on service, and those traits match the award’s focus on elevated stays with a sense of place.
Gastronomy is another front where Puerto Vallarta shows depth. Two long-running restaurants, Café des Artistes and La Leche, are nominated among Jalisco’s top author-driven kitchens. Café des Artistes, based in the city center, promotes itself as an iconic fine-dining room with more than three decades of history and a menu that blends local produce with contemporary techniques. La Leche, set in the hotel zone, is known for its stark white interior, rotating menu and theatrical approach to presentation, often cited in local guides as one of the city’s most distinctive dining rooms.
The chef category overlaps with those dining rooms. Thierry Blouet of Café des Artistes and Poncho Cadena of La Leche appear among the state’s contemporary chef nominees. Both have helped shape Puerto Vallarta’s reputation as more than a simple beach town, drawing food-motivated travelers and contributing to the city’s growing list of culinary recognitions in recent years.
What the nominations say about Vallarta’s future
The wedding and events segment rounds out Puerto Vallarta’s presence on the ballot. Mi Boda en Vallarta, a destination-wedding agency based in the city, is nominated in the wedding planner category. The company specializes in full coordination for couples who choose Puerto Vallarta, Riviera Nayarit and nearby beaches for their ceremonies, offering hotel selection, vendor management and guest services under one roof. That nomination underlines how important romance tourism has become for the bay, far beyond the traditional winter sun market.
Taken together, the shortlist paints a layered picture of how Puerto Vallarta competes inside Jalisco. The same destination that fills large beachfront resorts is now being recognized for ecotourism in mountain canyons, botanical conservation south of town, fine-dining institutions in the historic center, avant-garde restaurants in the hotel zone, intimate heritage hotels in the hills and a specialist wedding industry that turns those settings into one-off events.
The Lo Mejor de Jalisco 2025 program is still in its first edition, but the public voting already doubles as a kind of unofficial survey. Every ballot cast for a Vallarta nominee is a signal about what visitors value most in the city’s offer: adrenaline, quiet nature, design-driven hotels, special-occasion dining or the promise of a well-run destination wedding. State tourism officials have encouraged residents and travelers to support their preferred projects before the 23 November deadline, framing the awards as a way to highlight local pride.
Winners will be announced on 3 December in Zapopan. Regardless of how many trophies Puerto Vallarta carries home, the nominations themselves confirm that the city is competing on more than beaches alone. For local operators and the wider tourism industry, that recognition may be the most important prize.
