Spain´s Iberia Airways has officially closed down its regional hub in Miami to start flying nonstop from Madrid to Panama, Guatemala and Costa Rica using its own fleet, as well as to Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua through a bilateral agreement with TACA, the local air service provider. Drawbacks derived from heightened security controls in the United States have forced Iberia to lock down its international hub in Miami, a spokesperson from the Spanish air company told Caribbean News Digital.

Central American nations have turned to donors and financial institutions to get the cash they need for the execution of tourism development plans that could eventually help the region reap gains and create more jobs. “We want to implement tourism projects at a regional level, so we believe it’s important to keep individual donors that contribute money for Central American countries posted on the regional integration process and its projects,” Salvadoran Tourism Minister Luis Cardenal said.

Foreign investment money could start slipping away from Costa Rica in coming months as a result of corruption cases that have unfolded recently, the local League of Private Enterprise Chambers and Associations (UCCAEP is the Spanish acronym) warned this week. One of the sectors that could take a direct hit from rampant corruption in the country is tourism. As we speak, Costa Rican hotels are badly needing a figure in the neighborhood of $2 to $2.5 billion to get a new lease on life.

In a working document handed in to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), Cuba has lashed out at the 44-year-old U.S. trade embargo for causing millions of dollars in losses to the island nation´s aviation industry in terms of costs and squandered opportunities. According to Havana, "the U.S. monopoly on the making of commercial aircraft and their spare parts, components and technology, including factories in Europe, forces Cuban airlines to pay huge lump sums of money to buy their jetliners in more expensive markets."

Sol Meliá’s Cuba Division announced its intention to shell out $12 million in an effort to refurbish and improve the hotels the Spain-based company runs on Cuban soil. The announcement was made by the hotel chain’s Marketing & Sales Manager, Gabriel Garcia, who also explained that the investment will allow the company to keep its 21 hotels and resorts on the island nation up and running. In all, Sol Meliá manages as many as 8,479 rooms and 16,878 beds.

Forest caretakers on the Galapagos Islands have been walking the picket lines for the past two weeks and have caused $6 million in losses for the Ecuadorian government up to now, said Roque Sevilla, president of the Tourism Chamber in the province of Pichincha. Mr. Sevilla, who´s linked to several environmental groups, said tour operators have been hit harder than any other sector by the third strike staged by forest caretakers this year.