Havanatur and EuroAtlantic, a company from the Pestana Group, will soon open a new air connection for the Lisbon-Oporto-Havana route beginning July 11, the maiden flight date. The accord will allow stepping up the amount of Portuguese trekkers coming to Cuba and will pave the way for further offer expansion. On this joint agreement, the company’s Executive President Eduardo Pinto Lopez talked exclusively with the CND newspaper.

by Jose Carlos de Santiago (ITB 2008 - Berlin) Q.- First of all we’d like to know what the position of CHA really is as to the moving of its offices from Puerto Rico to Miami. A.- Let me clarify for you. What’s taking place is a change in how we do business, let alone the need to achieve the financial sustainability of the organization. We have outsourced functions of the Accounting Department that was based in Puerto Rico.

by Jose Carlos de Santiago A little longer than six months after taking over as director-general of Pullmantur, Jose Arriola talked exclusively with Caribbean News Digital newsletter about the company’s changes, results and perspectives under his leadership and new working style.

Oxfam International is a confederation of organizations made up of a baker’s dozen institutions that work diligently with more than 3,000 local entities from 100 countries. Their main projects are aimed at finding definitive solutions to slash poverty, social suffering and injustice. Quite recently, Oxfam International teamed up with the Excelencias Group to organize a workshop on risk reduction management in Cuba’s eastern province of Holguin. The organization’s regional representative for the Caribbean, Marc Ingelbrecht, -stationed in Cuba- talked exclusively with Caribbean News Digital about the event’s outcomes and major achievements.

FITUR 2008 - Madrid, Spain The U.S. Virgin Islands -comprising St. John, St. Thomas and St. Croix- have long been considered one of the safest travel destinations in the Caribbean. In addition, the small archipelago operates under U.S. laws and regulations, so visitors traveling in and out of the islands are not subjected to the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) that makes mandatory for all American tourists to have valid U.S. passports for Caribbean traveling. About this and other issues, Caribbean News Digital talked exclusively with Monique S. Hodge, assistant commissioner of the USVI Department of Tourism.

FITUR 2008 - Madrid, Spain The U.S. Virgin Islands -comprising St. John, St. Thomas and St. Croix- have long been considered one of the safest travel destinations in the Caribbean. In addition, the small archipelago operates under U.S. laws and regulations, so visitors traveling in and out of the islands are not subjected to the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) that makes mandatory for all American tourists to have valid U.S. passports for Caribbean traveling. About this and other issues, Caribbean News Digital talked exclusively with Luana Wheatly, marketing director of the USVI Hotel & Tourism Association.