WTM London 2022 Showcases the Very Best of Nicaragua

Exclusive interview with Anasha Campbell, Nicaragua's Minister of Tourism, within the framework of WTM London 2022

By Verónica de Santiago

What are your expectations for this first day of the World Travel Market?

We are showcasing the tourism offer of Nicaragua as a destination. Our campaign 'Nicaragua... naturally beautiful' seeks to showcase those natural beauties that interest consumer demand. Tourists are now looking for destinations where they can interact with nature and do outdoor activities, and this is a post-pandemic trend. 

In addition to this, London has always been one of our main European outbound markets for tourists to Nicaragua, along with Germany and Spain and, lately, France and Italy. 

The presence at the World Travel Market is extremely important, considering that we can now do it in this face-to-face format, seeing each other's faces and not behind a screen. We are here to resume and strengthen those ties with the wholesalers of this market, also with the international media... Besides, together with Central America we are always promoting the multidestination, with the campaign "Central America, so small... so big". 

We are also accompanied by Nicaraguan tour operators, who are holding negotiations with their counterparts in this market. On this occasion, we are accompanied by two tour operators, who are also promoting Nicaragua and presenting the latest news. In the last two years, several tourist attractions have been incorporated, and a large number of roads have been inaugurated to strengthen our offer. 

We also have the 'Isla del Amor', in our capital, which complements the offer we already had in Puerto Salvador Allende, Paseo de los Estudiantes, Paseo Xolotlán... Now, tourists can enjoy the diversity of the offer in Puerto Salvador Allende as well as a tour around Lake Managua, and go to the Island, where there is a series of attractions such as restaurants, a project of cabins to spend the night there.

We also have new hotels, such as the Hotel Gran Victoria, in the Rivas area, the Hotel L'ver, in Somoto, which strengthens the Río Coco Geopark, the first UNESCO World Geopark in Central America, and part of the Global Geoparks Network. That beauty and that tourist product is strengthened with a 4-star hotel, such as Hotel L'ver. At the same time, in these two years a great number of tourist ventures, coffee shops, places that have that identity and authenticity, that transmit that warmth of the Nicaraguan to the visitor, have arisen. 

In reference to what I was saying about highways, today we have roads that connect with the Caribbean, such as the one in Bluefields, which was inaugurated a couple of years ago and has allowed a greater flow of visitors to the Nicaraguan Caribbean. 

The Wawa Boom Bridge has also been recently inaugurated in the North Caribbean area. In the same way, the remodeling of the road from Las Flores to Catarina was inaugurated a few days ago. Catarina has always been one of our favorite destinations, because of the Laguna de Apoyo Natural Reserve, and now this road has more lanes for visitors and is in better condition. 

All this is in addition to a series of projects that the municipalities have been implementing in order to contribute to strengthening tourism. In the case of Catarina the entire viewpoint is being remodeled, likewise in Granada the entire La Calzada de Granada is being expanded, in Tipitapa they are working on the hot springs baths. Almost all the municipalities are working on projects that will benefit the tourist activity, and that will provide not only more facilities, but also more attractions for our visitors.

We were talking earlier about the evolution or devolution, because in the last two years there has been an attempt to make these tourism congresses 100% digital, but the whole industry has agreed that the tourism industry is not a completely digital industry. To a large extent it is, but not in the area of meetings. 

Exactly. For promotion and communication issues, digital is essential, but I think that digital formats have not worked well at trade fairs. In the end, congresses are about interaction between people, networking, getting to know each other, and listening to each other. That is why we are so happy with this face-to-face format, because I feel that, in the digital environment, people's attention is kept for a very short period of time. 

In this face-to-face format you often have a full agenda, but you meet people at the fair who are looking for information, who come with innovative proposals..., so you get more out of your presence at the congresses. 

What are Nicaragua's promotion plans in Europe and Latin America for 2023?

In all our markets we always make different efforts. Since 2022 we are focused on the international market. In previous years, even during the pandemic, we were more focused on domestic tourism. But this year we have bet on international tourism, and we are working on digital campaigns, on collaborative campaigns, on digital platforms such as Expedia or Booking. We have also worked on 'Fam Trips', that is, familiarization trips. Participation in the main international fairs is also extremely important for us. In the case of Europe: World Travel Market, FITUR, ITB, in Berlin, the TTG Italy, are some of the important fairs for us, and we would also like to be at TOP RESA, in France. 

We do not neglect, however, the efforts to promote the destination. We have had many destination presentations, which consist of traveling to our outbound markets and meeting there face-to-face with tour operators and wholesalers, which has worked quite well for us. This year we have made these destination presentations throughout Central America, in the United States and Canada, and we are going to continue this format for 2023. 

We are also working on advertising campaigns, for example on the screens of Times Square in New York, in airports in Canada, or on the aircraft of several airlines, such as Avianca or Copa Airlines, but we are going to extend it in the future. Our promotional strategy for next year includes all these strategic areas, in addition to training. We have seen that the human resources of tour operators and wholesalers have changed as a result of the pandemic, and there is a lot of new staff. 

This is the reason why we are promoting press and familiarization trips, in addition to campaigns, so that they get to know the Nicaraguan product and we can strengthen negotiations with our businessmen. The objective is to attract more tourists to Nicaragua, which also benefits our population, improving the quality of life of Nicaraguans. 

In relation to connectivity with Europe, at what point are you in the task of resuming these trips?

We are always following up on this issue, and it is one of the challenges that the pandemic left us, the issue of connectivity. At the end of this month, American Airlines is going to resume operations, Spirit Airlines will do so as well, United Airlines as of January next year. 

In the case of Europe, we always had negotiations with Iberia, and in fact in 2018 we were close to signing, but we had a complex situation in the country, a failed coup attempt. Then we got out of there and the pandemic came, but for us it is always a priority to get direct flights from Europe to Nicaragua. 

We think it is going to take some time, because the airlines look at the demand of travelers, because they have to fill the plane for the flight to be sustainable. We believe that eventually they are going to come, and right now we are at 60% recovery in traveler arrivals over 2019. We've exceeded 2020 and 2021 rates, but our goal is to get to the data we had pre-pandemic. 

In addition, the fact that cruise ships are not arriving in Nicaragua will have had an impact.

Indeed, at this moment we are not open to the arrival of cruise ships as a preventive measure against the pandemic. Since the virus arrived, we have not received any cruise ships. We hope in the future to see how this sector progresses, but we do not have a definite date to receive them again. 

For example, yesterday there was a cruise company that has announced that it is ending all Covid measures, including the request for vaccines. 

That is where they are in contradiction with the measures required by the countries. To enter Nicaragua they only ask to present the vaccination passport, and that is why the issue of cruises has been complicated until now. In the same way, if the airlines remove this request, they are also in contradiction with our measure.