“Cuba is living the best of times in the realm of tourism and that could become a magnificent steppingstone for the rest of the Caribbean,” said Alvar Ojeda in this exclusive conversation with Caribbean News Digital. With that view in mind, the hotel he’s been at the helm of over the past four months is working hard to cash in on this new window of opportunity.
Costa Rica -Central America’s tourism powerhouse- is charged with the responsibility of planning this year’s Central America Travel Market, a fair created to promote and sell travel and tourism offers in Europe, Latin America and Asia from each and every country within the region. The country is already cranking up preparations for an event it will pour nearly $1 million into in an effort to gather over a hundred exhibiting companies and a similar amount of wholesalers.
Amid promotional and advertisement efforts to be conducted across Europe by means of CATA, Nicaragua’s travel industry is determined to reinforce its presence and stance in the Old World by showcasing its own natural and cultural assets. This Central American nation is also trying to get a nonstop flight from Europe and is interested in bringing in the continent’s big-time hoteliers.
Central America is stirring great interest among both tourists and businesspeople in Europe, so Iberia, the Spanish airline, decided to create a new hub in the region back in 2004 and the effort is certainly paying off. Right now, the carrier holds a 50 percent share of that market. In other words, one out of two passengers traveling from Europe to Central America is flying Iberia.
El Salvador has set out to reach a tough goal in 2007 as far as the European market is concerned: put the number of visitors from the Old World in double digits, climbing from just a current 2.3 percent rate. The going was getting even tougher due to the lack of nonstop airlift between Europe and that Central American nation. However, an accord recently inked between Italy’s Livingston Air and the TACA Group opens a new window of opportunity in both directions.
The Dominican Republic’s travel industry posted an 8.4 percent increase in 2006 in terms of international arrivals and hopes to go that figure one better this time around. In the first two months of 2007, the country has put more good numbers on the board and heads for a successful first-quarter homestretch. The Caribbean nation keeps improving the tourist infrastructure and raising the quality of its hotels in a bid to draw in far more visitors.