Guest Relations Officer & Oaxacan Cultural Concierge

Responsibilities

• Manage the guest experience quality at an Oaxaca City boutique luxury hotel: the small scale (10–30 rooms) means every guest is known personally — the officer manages the complete experience of a small number of guests with corresponding depth and attention
• Curate the Oaxacan artisan community access with specific, non-generic knowledge: the weaving community in Teotitlán del Valle (where to find the family cooperatives producing organic-dye rugs versus the synthetic-dye tourist market); the pottery villages of San Bartolo Coyotepec for barro negro and Atzompa for the green-glazed ceramics; the alebrijes workshops in Arrazola and San Martín Tilcajete where the tourist boards are full but the actual masters sometimes take private commissions
• Coordinate Zapotec and Mixtec archaeological site access: Monte Albán (optimal visit time: opening at 8am, before the tour buses arrive after 10am); Mitla as an undervisited complement with superior geometric stone mosaic work; Yagul for the guest who wants an archaeological site in a natural landscape without any other visitors
• Manage Oaxacan culinary curation at the internationally recognized level: Oaxaca has become a world culinary destination — the guest relations officer who knows which of the acclaimed restaurants is genuinely worth a multi-week booking attempt and which is riding on magazine coverage; the market food at the Mercado 20 de Noviembre for authentic mole negro; the specific chocolate maker in the centro whose drinking chocolate is used by the town's best chefs
• Coordinate the mezcal experience with producer-level knowledge: the Valles Centrales mezcal palenques that are genuinely artisanal (distilled in clay pot stills, wild agave sources, very small production) versus those that now produce commercially at scale; the specific producers that the Oaxacan mezcal community respects; and the difference between a tourist mezcal tasting and a genuine producer visit
• Handle the Día de Muertos period management: Oaxaca is Mexico's most celebrated Día de Muertos destination — managing guest expectations and logistics for the November 1–2 period requires advance planning, community access relationships, and cultural context that the guest relations officer provides as a central function during this peak period

Requirements

• Guest relations or concierge experience; Oaxacan property experience strongly preferred
• English and Spanish bilingual; European language preferred for Oaxaca's significant international cultural tourism market
• Deep personal Oaxacan artisan, culinary, archaeological, and mezcal knowledge — the Oaxaca guest base is among the most discerning in Mexico and will immediately identify surface-level concierge knowledge
• Zapotec and Mixtec cultural sensitivity for indigenous community visits
• Día de Muertos community access and cultural facilitation competency

Benefits

• IMSS, aguinaldo, paid vacation + premium
• Staff meals (often from an exceptional Oaxacan kitchen at the boutique property)
• Service gratuity from the internationally sophisticated cultural tourism market
• Integration into the Oaxacan artisan, culinary, and mezcal community through property partnerships
• Career development in Mexico's most rapidly ascending cultural tourism destination

Work environment

Guest relations officer and cultural concierge at an Oaxaca City boutique luxury hotel. Artisan community access, Zapotec archaeological curation, culinary and mezcal navigation, and Día de Muertos cultural facilitation for Mexico's most culturally motivated international guest market.

About the role

The Oaxacan guest relations officer who takes a guest — a food writer from London — to the Mercado 20 de Noviembre on their last morning and walks them directly to the mole negro comedor where the same woman has been making the city's most respected negro since 1988 — who knows the woman by name, who translates the conversation about the 30-ingredient paste recipe and the toasted chili process — who walks out an hour later with the guest holding a jar of homemade paste and a recipe card the cook wrote out by hand — has done something that no restaurant reservation, no hotel spa, and no concierge list could replicate. The connection is the product. The knowledge to make the connection is the professional credential.