Q & A with Janet Ayala Díaz, General Manager of Infotur
The National Tourism Information Office (Infotur for the Spanish acronym) is the entity that represents the Cuban state in terms of tourism information. The organization in charge of developing a visitor information system on Destination Cuba, so tourists feel like they are assisted, guided and they can enjoy all of the tourism opportunities the country has to offer.
Caribbean News Digital has invited Janet Ayala Díaz, general manager of this institution, to tell us about the new elements they are offering for the ongoing summer and challenges to be faced in 2015.
What are the main actions Infotur is presently carrying out as a tourism information entity?
We are currently developing two essential information channels: the first one refers to the web attention because we now have a group of websites that stand as the Visitor Information System, and the second one is made up of printed and digital means.
As for our online presence, we’ve launched Cuba Travel this year, which is Cuba’s official tourism website and includes a national network of dot Travel (.travel) websites all over the country. Each territory, each destination has its own website to showcase our market-targeting products and services.
Any potential visitor, in every corner of Earth (this is Infotur’s greatest advantage) can get real time information on every development taking place in Cuba and its main attractions. This is an important information channel and we’re promoting it.
Within this System, we have a Follow us on social networks section, in different languages, and Infotur is managing it to target different markets. So, we have our institutional profile Infotur Cuba, but at the same time each territory has its own international profile on social networks and the main developments taking place in each destination are updated in real time.
What major social networks are you using?
Facebook and Twitter, with a group of webmasters from Pinar de Río to Guantánamo, both in Spanish and English, who post the most attractive tourism elements: traditional gastronomic recipes, a concert performed by an acclaimed figure of our culture, the history of a patrimonial site, among other pieces of information. We already count on a group of followers that are taking references from our institutional profiles. These networks are significant tool to position Infotur.
How about the other information channels?
The other channel is made up of both printed and digital means and, last year, we launched the heritage guides. These guides include the history and main products of our country’s patrimonial cities.
These guides show the dates to celebrate the 500th anniversary of these cities, their history and main festivities. This mean has been very acclaimed by tourists because it delivers important pieces of information, sheds light on the history of centenarian sites, which is even interesting to the Cuban people.
They are called Heritage City Guides and so far describe the cities of Bayamo, Baracoa, Trinidad, Sancti Spíritus, Remedios and Santiago de Cuba, which is going to become 500 years old in 2015. They are all included in the Guide and have been very acclaimed by our visitors.
We also have a group of videos on our destinations and we’re introducing, step by step, multimedia on our destination, we have four so far: Villa Clara, Las Tunas, Camagüey and Guantánamo.
Holguín and Santiago de Cuba are soon going to be ready, and this is an outstanding project our institution is developing this year. Infotur’s maps are quite useful for tourists.
Destination Cuba’s cartographic bases are up-to-date, a fact that has allowed us to have the street maps updated, since they are the main tourism information support for any traveler that comes to an Infotur’s sales outlet.
What are the top products you’re marketing for the summer of 2014?
We’ve made a digital information newsletter that includes new offers for this summer and each tourism information center showcases the main products promoted by the Ministry of Tourism, which has done its best to foster summer offers not only aimed at international tourists, but also national visitors.
All in all, Infotur deals with the main tourism offers by means of city maps, street maps, specialized guides, and much more.
We also have Cuba Geotur, a website on the country’s cartographic information that allows you to calculate routes from one spot to the next one, even within a province it tells you which way to go, how many kilometers to that place and what its main attractions are. That’s a value added to these marketed products.
On the other hand, we have internet and email service provided by Infotur’s network, another interesting option for visitors or any people interested in these services.
What are the main actions Infotur is developing for this summer, with Cuba playing the leading role?
Infotur is focusing the promotion in the steps taken by the Ministry of Tourism in terms of tourism information and promotion.
We have collaboration and work strategies with all tour operators in Cuba and, every single day, we post pieces of information in our institutional profiles and our websites, in real time, an exercise we did within the framework of FitCuba’s Virtual Show this year. We’re now trying to apply it to the summer months.
It’s very important to see how tourism entities have joined this project, there is a summary prepared for this summer time with all the activities that are being developed by different tour operators and this will undoubtedly support the efforts of our organization and the country to receive 3 million visitors, and all tourism entities are working to fulfill this goal.
Infotur is also posting pieces of information on our country’s social achievements, heritage values, etc. It’s a joint effort carried out by Mintur in order to attract 3 million tourists this year.
What has been the role played by Infotur in the creation of the Yellow Pages directory guidebook on travel information in 2014?
On alternate years, we publish Cuba’s Tourism Directory. It has become more complex because there are many people involved in this activity and it includes information on every service provided to tourists, but last year we saw that Etecsa had updated its telephonic data base, which is its main mission, including the new private business and we made a deal with Etecsa.
We gave Etecsa everything we had in our data base related to tourism destinations, both in Spanish and English languages, and they put on the table their telephonic base, so it was a strategic alliance. Afterwards, we were joined by Havanatur, Palmares and Gran Caribe.
This is a substantial instrument for tourism service providers and people that work in this sector, who also spread pieces of information and help tourists.
This directory can be found in every 4-5-star hotels, Infotur, travel agencies, car rental agencies, among others; so it’s useful for both tourists and tour operators.
This kind of collaborations between Cuban companies could be an effective mechanism in the future to pursue other goals.
What are Infotur’s foremost strengths as a Cuban tourism-oriented company?
Our entity’s main strength lies with its human resources. We count on highly-qualified, professional and experienced workers, who speak different languages (some of them even speak 4 languages) and there is great stability.
We have also strengthened our team, over the past 4-5 years, with people that have been trained to be future tourism information specialists and they are our webmasters.
Some of these people got their degree in Tourism, social communication, foreign languages. The System has gone this far thanks to these young people and FitCuba showed it, when we were recognized by the Ministry of Tourism due to the Virtual Show. In four days we got 12 thousand people following us, watching in real time everything that was going on with the Show and it was great.
What are Infotur’s uppermost goals for 2015?
Infotur is going to consolidate its position in 2015. We have a project, which is facing its last stage, so Destination Cuba is going to have a Call Center to foster our information service through the phone number 8 32 32 32 in Cuba, the first step of the Call Center to be managed by Infotur’s network.
From any spot on the planet, people will have the opportunity to ask for tourism information on the destination, a 24/7 service, several languages, a great move to be completed by Mintur and Cubatel in 2015, and it’s going to be an outstanding added value on our tourism destination.
