Juan Carrillo Figueroa, president of the Chamber of Commerce Delegation in the Mexican destination of Isla Mujeres, informed the tourist workforce dropped 20% during the ongoing low-peak season, regardless of the temporary shutdown of several tourism-related local businesses.

The Association for Urban Centers Management (AGECU) based in Valencia, Spain, as agreed upon by its board of directors, has recently awarded Havana’s Historian Office with the Prize 2002 in the category of Latin American Initiative.The Old Havana Restoration Project was acknowledged by the association as “a continuous process committed to the preservation of the history this place comprises... This is one of the richest historical centers in the Americas whose looks have shook up dramatically since 1994.”

The Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO), representing 32 member nations in the Dutch, English, French and Spanish-speaking Caribbean, is launching an annual Worldwide Travel Writer/Photographer Awards program to recognize and reward excellence in features and photos published or broadcast about the Caribbean region.“Stories are produced every day by various media and are being published in newspapers, magazines and trade journals along with great photographs featuring the Caribbean,” said Hugh Riley, director of marketing for CTO. “We are going to acknowledge and honour these writers and photographers each year for their hard work which results in promoting the Caribbean region as the leading warm weather destination in the world.”

The group Cubanacán S.A. signed agreements with executives from the Mexican club Las Velas, in the beach resort of Cancun, to open the Dos Gardenias Restaurant in that facility. The project, which will be completed by this year´s end, will result in a 250-seat restaurant dedicated to promoting the musical genre known as "bolero".With that initiative, Cancun´s Dos Gardenias will be the sixth such establishment run by Palmares abroad and the first in Mexican territory. The said company also runs restaurants in Lisbon and Porto (Portugal), Madrid (Spain) and Milan (Italy), where Cuba´s tourist offer is promoted.

Myrna Jansen Feliciano took over the leadership of Aruba’s Tourism Department last Oct. 1. A graduate of Sciences in the U.S., Ms. Jansen worked for a number of years in her country’s representation office in New York. She then moved back to Aruba where she served as PR Director, Assistant Director and Interim Director.

A new information system is now in force in the Dominican Republic to gather data on the tourist sector and produce statistics likened to the sector’s business activity. This new information tool will allow the Department of Tourism (SECTUR) to keep updated tabs on tourist companies and on those projects subjected to the entity’s approval. The brand-new automated resource was developed through the technical cooperation provided by the Inter American Development Bank (BID) for a final price tag of $146,000.