Scores of cigar lovers from around the world are having a ball at Havana’s Sixth International Cigar Festival that peaked with a gala dinner Thursday at the National Hotel to host Jenny Reppard, granddaughter of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, a celebrated habanos aficionado.
In an effort to highlight the classy style of the Festival, the moviemaking industry is giving a touch of its own to this year’s weeklong celebration of the good smoke that’s gathering cigar aficionados, experts, dealers, journalists and artists from all around the globe.
The 23rd Tourist Tradeshow of Colombia’s National Association of Travel Agencies and Tourism (ANATO) rolled down its curtains Wednesday after showcasing the recreational products of over two dozen countries and highlighting Panama as the guest nation.
ANATO President Oscar Rueda pointed out this year’s fair grew a whopping 26 percent in number of exhibitors, jumping from 410 participants in 2003 to 480 this time up. In the same breath, exhibition space rented for the tradeshow soared from 4,000 to 5,000 square yards for a 25 percent increase.
Acapulco will put on its bib and tucker from April 18 to 21 to host the 29th edition of the Tourist Marketplace, one of the top events of Mexico’s travel industry targeting business tour operators, wholesalers, incentive purchasers, charter flight operators and travel agents.
The Sixth Caribbean Media Exchange on Sustainable Tourism (CMEx) will unfold from June 24 to 28 in St. Lucia, according to a confirmation made by Counterpart International, the event’s top organizer.
The St. Lucia conference will be a follow-up to the previous five meetings that got cracking for the first time on October 2001 with the intention of gathering press professionals specialized in the realm of tourism. The other media exchanges were held in the Bahamas, Barbados and Jamaica.
Congress, seminar and meeting tourism in Uruguay was up a whopping 32.8 percent in 2003 from the year before, the Uruguayan Association of Congress and Related Event Organizers (AUDOCA) reported.
During the course of last year, Uruguay played host to 470 events, including 179 of international scope. Each attendant to those congresses averaged $1,400 worth of revenues for the country’s coffers.
Around 81 percent of those conclaves took place in Montevideo, little more than 9 percent in Punta del Este, and the remaining 10 percent in other cities around the nation.
People from nearly all European nations will huddle from April 24 to 28 at the Maho Beach Resort & Casino tourist compound in St. Maarten to catch the Dutch Caribbean Meets Europe (DCME) event.