International Seminar on Cultural Diversity and Developing Tourism opens in Cuba

The UNESCO Regional Office for Latin America and Caribbean Culture is sponsoring an international seminar this week in Havana to assess the impact of cultural diversity and tourism on society, as well as to help lay out development policies in this respect.

The seminar will be attended by renowned experts from everywhere under the sun who will conduct workshops with a view to hammer out solutions within the framework of Action Plan contained in the UNESCO Universal Declaration of Cultural Diversity.

Francisco J. Lacayo Parajon, chief of the UNESCO Regional Office for Latin American and Caribbean Culture will welcome attendants to the gathering that counts on the sponsorship of Cuba’s tourism and culture ministries and the Office of Havana City Historian.

The working sessions of the event will be emceed by Paris-based UNESCO expert Hervé Barré, Brazilian professor Antonio Carlos Souza Lima, Cuban scholar Maria Elena Deulofeu and Belgium’s Tomke Lask.

On the other hand, lecturers and other participating experts from the Arab Emirates, Morocco, South Africa, Australia, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong and the U.S. will air their views on the need to build a kind of leisure industry that observes respect for cultural diversity.

Latin America and the Caribbean will be represented in this event by Havana City historian Eusebio Leal (scheduled to dictate a master lecture), Ecuadorian scholar Luis R. Flores and Mexican professor Jesus Antonio Machuca.