Puerto Rico is nabbing some 30,000 Spanish tourists every year, a figure that backs up the existence of four weekly flights operated by Iberia and the magnificent support of tour operators. The recent interest of Spanish hotel chains to tap the Caribbean island’s market, coupled with a hands-on promotional and advertisement campaign to get cracking this year in Madrid, Bilbao and Barcelona, will certainly help increase the number of tourist arrivals from the Iberian Peninsula, Puerto Rico’s number-one outbound market in Europe.

Europe is one of Guatemala’s top outbound markets, doling out an array of great offers among visitors from the Old World, including archeological sites, fishing, birdwatching, religious and cultural tourism, modern and colonial cities and a whole lot more.

Regardless of holding on to the U.S. as its number-one outbound market, Puerto Rico is beginning to look far more thoroughly to Europe and especially to Spain, not only in an effort to lure more visitors, but also a larger chunk of corporate money. Companies like Spain’s Sol Melia are bidding up for the lovely island with plans in the offing to add as many as 5,000 new hotel rooms during the ongoing administration. Puerto Rico is making good on this endeavor by attending major tourism fairs like FITUR.

The Paradisus Princesa del Mar hotel is the seventh lodging Spain-based company Sol Melia has opened in Cuba’s Varadero Beach, a destination this Spanish group eyes as a major steppingstone to get a much tighter grip of the sizzling Cuban market where it owns two dozen properties right now. The establishment’s General Manager told Caribbean News Digital he wants the Paradisus Princesa del Mar to be Sol Melia’s finest resort on the Caribbean island nation.

by Maria Caridad Gonzalez The Madrid International Tourism Fair (FITUR) has turned out to be a major tradeshow for Panama’s private sector companies given the number of deals they cut with similar partners in both the Spanish and European markets. This is what the Marketing and Communications Manager for the IPAT had to say to Caribbean News Digital.

In recent weeks, Aruba was home to the largest tourism marketing event held every year in the region: the Caribbean Marketplace. In addition to the recognition for having been picked to host this major gathering, the Island Where Happiness Lives took advantage of this opportunity to unveil a far-reaching plan of hotel refurbishment and bit flips in terms of tourist infrastructure. These efforts will surely lead this hot Caribbean destination to revamp its image and lure a larger amount of visitors in coming months.