Cuba to come on strong at Latin America Tourism Fair

Over a dozen Cuban travel companies will come to Buenos Aires for the Eighth International Tourism Fair of Latin America (FIT) –considered one of the top tradeshows of its kind in the Western Hemisphere.

This time around, Cuba’s Cubanacan (hotels, travels and health tourism), Horizontes, Sol Meliá, Islazul, Cubatur, Occidental Hotels, Sandals, Havanatur, Cubana de Aviacion, the Convention Bureau and the island nation’s Tourism Minister will be there for the main event.

The list also includes –despite not being present at FIT yet- the prestigious Gran Caribe Co., whose execs have just wrapped up a heated promotional blitz in Argentina, said Omar Cisneros, chief of Cuba’s Tourism Office for Southern South America.

In an exclusive interview with Prensa Latina news agency, the Cuban expert praised the significant headway Argentina is making right now, mainly in the leisure industry, as seen in increasingly larger numbers of Argentine travelers coming to Cuba.

Mr. Cisneros underscored his country is the only Caribbean nation flying nonstop to Buenos Aires through Cubana de Aviacion. Other carriers have similar flights but with in-between stopovers.

For the upcoming high-peak season (the southern summer months of January and February), the Cuban airline will operate three charter flights a week, in addition to its regular Sunday flight, to the destinations of Havana, Santa Lucia, Varadero and Cayo Coco.

Cuban authorities expect to come in for as many as 5,000 Argentines –traveling from different routes- in that period of time.

In assessing the ongoing tourist outflow of Argentine trekkers to Cuba, Mr. Cisneros didn’t fail to remember the profound economic crisis the South American nation went through in recent years.

In the year 2002 alone, the number of trippers dropped 80 percent compared to 2000, the 12-month period that set a record high in the number of travelers with 54,185. Other good years for Argentina were 1998 with 47,579, 1999 with 42,621, 1997 (41,324) and 2001, when that figure tallied 40,964 voyagers.

For Mr. Cisneros, another factor that played a key role in rekindling Argentine travel to the island nation was Cuban President Fidel Castro’s historic visit to Buenos Aires earlier this year for the inauguration of Argentine President Nestor Kirchner.

In the same breath, the normalization and further improvement of political and trade ties between the governments of Cuba and Argentina have helped in this sense, too, the Cuban official concluded.