According to a recent report issued by the United Nations on trade and development, direct foreign investment in Latin America and the Caribbean fell down in 2003 for a fourth year in a row, tallying a meager $48.7 billion in the region´s forty-largest economies.
Stacked up against 2002, when the region received $50.7 billion worth of direct foreign investment, Latin America and the Caribbean went south in 2003.
The Costa Maya Tourist Compound, being built on a 12,200-acre vacant lot bathed by the Mexican Caribbean Sea, will require a $1.5 billion investment package, the state government of Quintana Roo informed today.
State Tourism Secretary Artemio Santos explained the Costa Maya compound, intended for deep-pocket travelers, includes the construction of hotels, marinas and other facilities that will make it the second-biggest resort in Mexico with great chances of becoming the country’s premier home port in only three years.
Barbados´s Tourism Minister Noel Lynch stressed his government´s intention to bail British West Indies Airways (BWIA) out of a longstanding crisis and pay off a debt of undisclosed proportions.
Mr. Lynch, who attended sessions of a blue-ribbon panel under the title "Caribbean Tourism: Beyond Sale of Seashells at the Beach," reminded participants that BWIA -with flights to Cuba, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic and other short-hop destinations- "must do everything within its power to turn the tables and start getting good results," Mr. Lynch explained.
Gains reaped by Spanish hotel chain Sol Meliá in Cuba were up a solid 27 percent in 2003 to tally €203 million more than the year before, Gabriel Garcia, the company´s marketing director on the island, said this week.
During a press conference to open Cuba´s new promotional campaign in Spain -in which the Spanish hotel company is playing a mayor role- Mr. Garcia explained that Sol Meliá is currently running 8,446 rooms and 16,892 beds in a dozen hotels on the island nation, numbers that account for 22 percent of Cuba´s total amount of accommodations.
A fresh attempt is being made by Caribbean governments and hoteliers to iron out differences with cruise lines, which ply the Caribbean route. The Chairman of the Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO), Obie Wilchcombe, made the disclosure following a meeting of Caribbean tourism ministers in New York last week.
Speaking at a news conference in New York, the Bahamas Tourism Minister told reporters that ministers have endorsed the stablishment of a tripartite committee that has been set up to review the relationship.
The European travel package market could chalk up a modest 4 percent increase in 2004 following two years of bleak figures, an annual research study conducted among 150 tour operators by German travel magazine FVW revealed this week.
However, experts were hoping to see better numbers on the board, taking into account a strong recovery in bookings earlier this year. But the rebound of the travel market apparently hit another snag over the course of the past month, leaving tour operators once again drowned in uncertainty as the summertime travel season closes in.