On November 13th and 14th Costa Rican entrepreneurs of hotel brands, investment funds and real estate developers will be meeting in Costa Rica to discuss sustainable investments in the industry.
The event is being organized by the Costa Rican Tourism Institute (ICT) and will take place at the Hotel Real Intercontinental.
The First Congress of Tourism Integration will be held on the March 22nd and 23rd in Panama City, with the objective of establishing a road map for the sector.
With this conference the Tourism Authority of Panama is aiming to bring together the different players in the industry in order to establish the roadmap for the sector.
According to industry players, rural community tourism is growing "slowly, but surely."
According to Harold Ramos, president of the Nicaraguan Network of Rural Tourism (Renitural), agritourism and rural community tourism , "is something that is developing slowly, but surely."
The Intur, with the support of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, has announced new investments to develop the second phase of the ‘Ruta del Café’ (Coffee Route).
The departments that make up the ‘Ruta del Café’ are Jinotega, Matagalpa, Estelí, Madriz and Nueva Segovia.
There are 26 Cuban, North American and Nicaraguan owned tobacco factories in the country's cooler north west that together account for more than half national production.
Nicaragua's Institute for Tourism (Intur), in its search for ways to broaden the country's appeal, is looking into the idea of creating a "Tobacco Route" in the north of the country, around Estelí, on the basis that for a select group of visitors to Nicaragua, tobacco is considered a delicacy.
The campaign, with a $ 7.2 million investment, is to support Ometepe's tourist related MSMEs and agritourism farms.
The project will begin next January and will start with the refurbishment of the first farms of the 90 included on the project. These will be ready to welcome tourists by May 2011.
Between January and July growth of 5% was reported in rural community tourism.
The 90 farms that are part of Nicaragua's Agro-tourism Farms initiative have reported an increase in tourist numbers, comments Harold Ramos Orozco, president of Nicaraguan Rural Community Tourism Network (Renitural in Spanish).
Luxemburg has announced the donation to go towards developing tourism in the north of the country.
The first phase of the program began in 2007 with an investment of $5.2 million in financial and logistical assistance aimed at increasing the number of tourists visiting the northern area of Nicaragua known as the Ruta del Café ("Coffee Route"). This stage is due to finish this year.
A support program, funded with $1.2 million donated by Luxembourg, will benefit 130 touristic SMEs from the country's north.
This program will provide financial and logistic assistance to local companies, in order to increase the number of visitors to the area known as the 'Coffe Route'.
Mario Salinas, president of Nicaragua's Tourism Institute, explained that "they are negotiating additional support from the Government of Luxembourg. They want them to fund the second phase of the 'Coffee Route' program, which needs around $8 million", reported Laprensa.com.ni. "Additionally, Nicaragua is seeking resources from Spain, the European Union and Germany, among others".
The course is given entirely over the Internet using the Virtual Classroom teaching model established and recognized by the Educational Portal of the Americas.
The Organization of American States (OAS), via the Educational Portal of the Americas (www.educoas.org), and the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), via its Distance Training Center (CECADI), are currently training the first 96 participants of the "Agro-eco-tourism: Basic elements for implementing an innovative tourism project" course. The group is made up of citizens form various member countries of the OAS and include those individuals from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Barbados, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, United States, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Uruguay y Venezuela.
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