Panama is bent on bringing investment to the country during the Panama Week 2004 scheduled to take place in Washington next November, informed Ricardo Eskildsen, chairman of the U.S.-Panama Corporate Council. Mr. Eskildsen explained that the tenth edition of the Panama Week will feature a tight agenda full of topics dealing with world trade trends, tourism, transportation and telecommunication technology.

More than a dozen nations will participate in the Fifth International Wine Festival scheduled from Oct. 13 to 15 at Havana´s National Hotel, the flagship lodging of the nation´s capital. The initiative is bringing together an increasingly larger number of cellars, salespeople, experts and journalists as Cuba continues posting even bigger numbers on the board as far as top-quality tourism is concerned.

The World Tourism Organization (WTO) and the European Travel Commission (ETC) have joined hands with Hungary’s National Tourism Office to sponsor an international seminar on marketing assessment methodologies scheduled to take place in Budapest next Sept. 23 and 24. The seminar offers a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get word of the WTO-ETC joint research study entitled Assessment of Marketing Actions in National Tourism Organizations, the first detailed guideline and tool to size up the volume and efficiency of the countries’ actions in the field of tourism.

“The World Under Just One Roof” will be the slogan of the upcoming World Tourism Exposition (WTE), scheduled for Sept. 23 to 25 in Mexico. According to the organizers, this second edition is supposed to go the 2003 WTE one better in every way. This time around, there’ll be five theme pavilions linked to the so-called convention tourism, as well as to ecotourism, spa, golf and cruises. As a matter of fact, the latter is highly important for the host country as Mexico holds 45 percent of the world’s total number of cruise passengers that sail around the seven seas every year.

The prodigious Caribbean nature has turned out to be a valuable source of adventures and new discoveries, a reason why ecotourism and its different modalities have claimed a top spot of their own in the daily going of the region’s travel industry. A paradise for endemism, natural beauties and biodiversity as far as flora and wildlife are concerned are some of the choices the Caribbean has to offer, other than the more traditional sun-and-sand circuits. Birds, famous geographical features, one-and-only rocky formations, beaches of powder-thin sands and crystal-clear waters, peerlessly beautiful sea bottoms good enough to make a scuba diver’s day and bright sunshine all year round are things the region has always offered in an array of unforgettable experiences.

The finest dishes of Cuba’s cuisine will bask in the limelight of the Fifth International Culinary Festival, scheduled to take place from Sept. 13 to 19 at Havana’s National Hotel, the island nation’s flagship lodging establishment. Organizers are expecting a turnout of approximately 200 experts from both the turf and overseas. The event’s agenda features exhibits, workshops, debates, ability contests and the very best food money can buy.