Rebeca Jara, director of promotion in Cuba’s Ministry of Tourism and a member of the organizing committee of the 13th International Tourism Convention, told Caribbean News that the island nation’s top tourism event –scheduled for May 5 to 8 at the Plaza America Conference Center in Varadero- intends to highlight the country’s conditions to develop congress, conventions and incentives, as well as for ecological tourism and scuba diving. Mrs. Jara underscored the convention’s commercial and professional character in which the country’s tourism authorities plan to unveil a new array of products and showcase the tourist circuit of Holguin, where Cuba’s largest hotel –the Playa Pesquero- was opened earlier this year.

Q: What’s Silares’ major activity? Silares operates in Cuba through a joint venture with the Ministry of Transportation. It deals with the marketing of cruises, so it’s bound to work in ports and docking piers where passengers get on and off the liners, either in the terminals or in other stopover checkpoints, like Punta Frances, that offer different conditions.

(Confederation of Latin American Planners and Organizers of Congress and Related Events) The fact that Cuba hosts COCAL’s chairmanship office is “no doubt a recognition to the development of the island nation’s congress industry and to the professional level achieved by our country,” says COCAL chairman Eulogio Rodriguez, who also lays out the confederation’s goals in this interview.

In this exclusive interview, Mr. Mateos underscored the special features of the Meliá Havana, one of the major hotels in the city for both leisure tourism and the special modality of business, congress and general events. In the same breath, Mr. Mateos talked about the good numbers posted by the hotel in recent times, the top-quality services that single it out and the projects its front office has in store.

Read out this exclusive interview with one of Cuba’s most influential businessmen from the realm of tobacco and cigars. Market outlooks, new perspectives and strategies, expansion prospects, duty-free sales and the outcomes of the recently concluded Fifth Cigar Festival are contained in some of the Mr. Ercilla’s answers to Caribbean News Digital.

Q: Mr. Holder, can you give us an assessment of how the Caribbean fared in the year 2002? R:/ Unfortunately, we haven’t received all the 2002 statistics, so I can’t give you a real appraisal. We started 2002 with very disappointing outcomes. But we’ve been getting better as the year goes by. There are even some countries that have done somewhat better than last year, especially in the months of November and December. As soon as we have all the information in out hands, we expect (the region) to be 3 to 4 percent lower than the year before. This is for the region as a whole, because some countries will remain unchanged.