Tourism is Nicaragua’s second-best hard currency maker

The leisure industry is by and large Nicaragua’s second largest income source as local authorities expect to rake in nearly $150 million this year, said Lucia Salazar, chairwoman of the Nicaraguan Tourism Institute (INTUR).

Mrs. Salazar noted the nation’s hospitality industry chipped in $116 million last year for a solid double-digit growth in the number of foreign arrivals to that Central American country.

“By the end of 2003, we’ll reach half a million visitors in Nicaragua. We’re a multi-destination, we’re siblings and we can plug along together,” she added in reference to integration possibilities for the Caribbean Basin.

For Mrs. Salazar, Costa Rica is the undisputed leader of Central American tourism. “(Costa Rica) has managed to identify its product and thanks to that, we can now take advantage of the beaten track as a neighboring country,” she pointed out.

“We must page down what products to advertise, and for that purpose we count on a great lead: our colonial cities and our culture. That’s why we’re rooting for the multi-destination thing,” Mrs. Salazar went on to say.

Nicaragua is blessed with a couple of gorgeous colonial cities –Granada and Leon- lying 45 and 93 kilometers south and northwest of Managua, respectively. Both burgs were founded by Spanish conquistador Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba in 1524.

Nicaraguan authorities have just unveiled the country’s first tour map highlighting the many attractions of the seaport city of San Juan del Sur and Ometepe Island, the latter jutting out in Nicaragua’s Great Lake, known locally as Cocibolca.

“I recently leaned that roughly 80 percent of all tourists coming to Liberia and Guanacaste in Costa Rica, also come to Nicaragua,” Chairwoman Salazar explained.

“That’s why,” –she concluded- “we’re working on the initiative of borderline integration and lower costs to provide better chances for travelers. That combination will make it easier for tourists to travel on to our country.”