Medellín in Action: How Frolleagues Are Rewriting MICE Travel in 2025

Nearly three out of ten travelers travel with frolleagues*—friends who are also colleagues—and one in four plans to extend their stay to combine work and leisure (bleisure). Traveling with someone else reduces barriers: eight out of ten attendees acknowledge that they feel more comfortable when they can travel with someone they know. Furthermore, two-thirds of bleisure trips are organized around a congress or conference. 

Arví Park: natural laboratory for pod-squads 

Located 18 km from downtown Medellín, accessible via Metrocable Line L, Arví Park offers 1,761 hectares of protected forest: the ideal setting for alternating work and regenerative well-being. The Arví Auditorium (254 m², with a capacity of up to 300 people) is ideal for plenary sessions or nature-tech launches, while the 3,500 m² main plaza serves as a farmers' market, pop-up fair, or sunset stage. Trails like the Bosque del Silencio and creative classrooms like Crearvivo allow for the design of 70-30 agendas: formal content in the morning and reconnecting experiences in the afternoon. 

Botanical Garden: Instagrammable bioarchitecture minutes from downtown 

In downtown Medellín, the José Jerónimo Triana Orquideorama combines wooden hexagons and living collections of orchids, bromeliads, and palm trees over nearly 4,000 square meters, with a capacity for up to 3,000 attendees. Modular rooms and open-air spaces next to the lagoon facilitate parallel routes for training, wellness, and networking without leaving the same green space. Every corner is photogenic and reinforces the environmental narrative valued by the new generation of travelers. 

Multisensory experiences and Instagrammable settings 

The Millennial-Gen Z audience demands immediate immersion: six out of ten attendees prioritize experiences that engage multiple senses and generate social media-worthy content. Furthermore, knowing in advance what they'll be eating and having allergy-friendly options reduces anxiety and encourages people to share the experience. 

Discover Provence Tour – Somos Belisario Group 

Provenza, the city's most cosmopolitan neighborhood, transforms into a nightlife circuit connecting up to seven gastropubs. The tour begins with a signature cocktail at WAN restaurant and progresses to spaces where themed cocktails, mapping, and playlists recreate different cultures. A menu previewed via QR code, settings designed for photo moments, and gastronomic narratives linked to local identity turn each stop into an improvised set worthy of stories and reels. 

Pod-squads, green settings, and multi-sensory experiences form the winning equation for meeting tourism in 2025. Medellín combines these three vertices in less than a half-hour drive: Arví Park offers the regenerative touch, the Botanical Garden guarantees the viral aesthetic, and Provenza adds the cosmopolitan nightlife that extends the stay. 

For the Bureau, packaging this trilogy means turning each meeting into a memorable story with measurable impact and organic dissemination—just what frolleagues who travel, work, and share together are looking for. 

* What is a frolleague? 

Friend + colleague. The coworker with whom you share your morning meeting, brunch, or afternoon walk. For Generation Z—natives of hybrid work—they are the “safety net” that reduces travel anxiety and increases the desire to stay a couple of days extra. 

Source: Medellín Bureau.