Cuba’s 2005 Tourism Convention to be Held in Havana

Havana will retake Cuba’s International Travel Convention next year, the island nation’s Tourism Minister Manuel Marrero informed in a press conference. The 2005 Convention will focus on the promotion of travel destinations in the eastern province of Santiago de Cuba, the advertisement of circuits, tours and excursions, and the highlighting of the French market.

The recently concluded 24th edition of the Convention laid bare that culture is not a tourism add-on, but rather an activity ingrained in the leisure industry. Each day brought along parties and celebrations that underscored the Cuban cultural heritage at its best.

Under a slogan reading “Culture to Feel: Cuba as a Driving Destination,” the event allowed industry professionals interested in Cuban destinations to exchange views on the travel sector’s latest trends.

The stars of this year’s Convention were culture as a tourist product, the travel destination of Jardines del Rey –one of the fastest-growing local markets that has already snared over a million travelers in the past decade- and the steady-growing British market.

Countless presentations and performances marked a convention that gathered more than 2,000 attendants to the working sessions and the Fashion & Art Show, an event entirely devoted to hype Cuban fashion that took place at the Bahia Principe Varadero Hotel.

Another important highlight came at the Meliá Varadero Hotel with the presentation of Cuban award-winning poetess Carilda Oliver Labra’s latest book.

The Tropical Varadero Sand Figure & Sculpture Grand Festival was held next to the Horizontes Club Tropical Hotel and huddled 43 contestants who put on quite a good show of their own. The contest was organized as part of the festivities to celebrate Horizontes Hotel Chain’s tenth anniversary.

Children, youngsters and adults built nineteen gorgeous sand figures and sculptures for vacationers to feast eyes on. A bunch of Canadian sunbathers who participated in the solo, duet and group categories gave free rein to their imagination and turned sand into real masterpieces.

The Convention also included the official grand opening of the Grand Lido Varadero Hotel, a fancy five-star resort of 434 rooms. This all-inclusive lodging, owned by Cuba’s Gaviota Group, will be run and managed by SuperClubs, a Jamaican hotel company.

In the course of his news conference, Mr. Marrero revealed attendants to the Convention cut some major deals and signed important agreements that will eventually open up new working strategies in the near future.

“We’ve been working with the future in the crosshairs these days and we’re confident that Cuba’s tourism will have a far bigger growth, diversification, quality and efficiency with each passing year,” Mr. Marrero was quoted as saying.

According to Cuba’s Tourism Minister, Cuba had less than 13,000 hotel rooms by the turn of the 1990s when tourism barely accounted for 4 percent of the country’s income with just 50,000 employees and local products only meeting 12 percent of the industry’s needs.

In a span of fifteen years, Cuba has climbed from the 23rd spot to the 8th notch among the travel heavyweights in the Americas, only trailing behind the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.

Mr. Marrero explained that his country is now welcoming trekkers from dozens of nations, with Canada leading the pack among the top tourist-sending markets. The North American country grabbed 25 percent of all trippers that traveled to Cuba in the first quarter of the ongoing year for a solid 18 percent jump compared to the same period of time in 2003.

Germany, Italy, France and Spain combined for a third of all incoming tourists in 2003. However, the British market has been growing steadily since 1996.

Mr. Marrero noted that even though these are major markets for the island nation, the rest of them also play a significant role in the development of the country’s leisure industry.

“One of our top priorities is no doubt the diversification of sending markets,” the Cuban Minister pointed out.

Mr. Marrero wrapped up his press conference referring to Mexico as the number-one Latin American sending market after dethroning the then slumping Argentine market back in 2001.