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.

The Caribbean tourism industry is projected to grow significantly this year, the World Travel & Tourism Council indicated in an analysis on the region´s hotel industry. The business group released projections that tourism industry´s receipts in the region will grow 16.8% over last year, nearly quadrupling earlier expectations. Visitors are expected to spend $19 billion in the region this year, Executive Director Rick Miller told attendees at the annual Caribbean Hotel Industry Conference. Private sector tourism investments are forecast to grow to $7.4 billion in 2004 - 21.7% of the total investment in the region and 1.6% more than last year, Miller said. Caribbean governments are also projected to spend $1.9 billion on tourism, 4.5% more than last year.

Argentina’s leisure industry raked in $2 billion worth of revenues in 2003, a 7.7 percent slice of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product, and it’s now setting aim at making tourism the country’s second-largest economic powerhouse in a way similar to what Spain has accomplished. Daniel Pablo Aguilera, undersecretary of Tourism Management and Policy, and Daniel Aime, chief of Promotion and Development, aired their views on this issue in a recent press conference with Spanish journalists in Buenos Aires.

The Financial Commission of the Venezuelan Parliament greenlighted the state to own the total amount of shares of flagship airline Conviasa with a $16 million down payment forked over by state-run company Petroleos de Venezuela. Members of Parliament explained this is the last necessary step for the creation of Conviasa (Venezuelan Consortium of Aeronautical Industries and Air Services, S.A.), an endeavor outlined by the Venezuelan government in order to secure domestic and international air transportation, as well as to promote tourism.

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.

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.