Cuban President Fidel Castro broke some good economic news in the Parliament on Christmas Eve as he went through an assortment of trade outcomes in 2004 and laid out new business opportunities for the island nation next year. Investments in the nickel industry, the discovery of oil wells, credit lines and donations, heftier trade and financial ties with China and Venezuela, among other factors, helped the Cuban economy grow 5 percent in 2004.

Tourism authorities in Costa Rica are putting their smart money on a skidding U.S. dollar to eventually scoop up far more European vacationers in the year 2005, sources close to the country´s National Tourism Chamber told Caribbean News Digital this week. Some 230,000 Europeans visited Costa Rica in 2004, little more than a sixth of the 1.5 million tourists who travel to the Central American country on a yearly basis.

The amount of money raked in by Venezuela´s leisure sector jumped a blistering 26.8 percent to $86 million in the third quarter of 2004 compared to that same three-month period a year ago. Between the months of July and September, the local hospitality industry snapped up $109 million. Caracas, the nation´s capital, continued to be the most sought-after destination with 63,663 visitors, followed by Margarita Island and the state of Aragua.

The number of tourists who visited Mexico from January through October this year peaked 16.5 million, up 10.8 percent from the same period of time in 2003, while revenues have climbed 21.6 percent to nearly $8.8 billion. In the light of these figures, Mexico’s tourism officials are still in hope of reaching new milestones of $9.3 billion worth of profits and roughly 19 million travelers by the end of the year.

Costa Rica’s leisure industry is girding for heftier numbers next year despite a 5.6 percent slide in projected investment that will total $49.7 million, Tourism Minister Rodrigo Castro said this week. In 2003, the country snared $52.1 million in overall investment cash flow. Mr. Castro warned that unless investment growth speeds up in the near future, the gap between hotel room offer and demand will continue widening at a frenzied pace.

Regardless of a recent upturn as far as passengers and cargo volumes worldwide are concerned, the globe’s top airlines will lose more than $4.8 billion in 2004, the International Air Transportation Association (IATA) informed this week. IATA Director Giovanni Bisignani said that regardless of “a negative economic environment and heightened uncertainty about fluctuating oil prices, the international air traffic has been climbing steadily over the past ten months.”