CUBA-ECONOMY: See You at the Havana Convention

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Sep 17 1996 (IPS) - Tourism is invading all spheres of Cuban life.

Conventions on education, para-psychology, sex, and even pig farming are being used as vehicles for luring visitors as the Caribbean island attempts to maximise earnings from a dynamic growth industry. This is on top of the country’s vigorous health- tourism, culture-tourism, eco-tourism and even religion-tourism.

Sun and beaches are being used to attract firemen, nurses and other categories of workers who want an appropriate setting in which to exchange information, be informed and keep abreast of developments in their respective fields.

“This type of specialized tourism is one of the most profitable, the one which generates the most income, but at the same time one of the most demanding,” says Eulogio Rodriguez, president of the Conventions Bureau of Cuba.

Founded in 1983, the bureau secured official support last year as part of a government effort to develop tourism. Experts predict that the “smokeless industry” could eventually develop into the leading foreign exchange earner~, putting an end to a long history of dependence on sugar cane.

Sources at the Conventions Bureau say 80,000 of the 745,000 tourists who visited the island in 1995 attended meetings and conventions. For example, Pedagogia 95, the XVI International Tourism Convention, and the International Fair of Havana attracted some 5,000 tourists.

This year some 700 workshops, seminars, congresses, fairs, sports competitions and encounters of all types are planned for Cuba. Of the number 300 are international in nature.

“We can hardly keep up,” says Miledys Santiago, a 32-year-old sociologist who works in a government research centre. “I would like to participate in all the events that are related to my specialty, so that I can stay current, but then I wouldn’t have any time to work.”

The International Association of Convention Bureaus (ICCA) — which brings together the various entities involved in organising conventions — claims the activity generates some 60 billion dollars a year worldwide.

Most of the business comes from Europe and North America, mainly in the United States, followed by Asia and the Pacific and Latin America.

The city of Sao Paulo, Brazil, leads the Latin American region in the development of that category of tourism, with an annual average of one million tourists arriving to participate in meetings.

“This type of activity requires time and preparation. In order to become the site for prestigious events one must petition, negotiate, and only then, after meeting all the requirement, one can obtain it,” said Rodriguez.

However, the event itself is just an excuse. According to authorities, it is a way of attracting more travellers that pay for a tourist package, spend dollars in official State stores, and buy at least one excursion to Varadero Beach, 140 kilometers from Havana.

For the low-income sector, like school teachers, participating in one of these events is often a way of travelling on a tourist package, which offers special rates. In the end, nobody is forced to remain in the conference halls all day.

“There are always people interested in the conference, but you always find those who attend the inauguration and closing ceremony of the event. They are in Cuba and they don’t want to waste their time inside a conference,” said one waiter at the Conventions Palace in Havana.

An international conference like Pedagogia — which will now take place in Cuba every two years — can bring together 5,000 educators, who besides filling the rooms in the Havana palace, are the best example of using an event to come to the island with the purpose of having a vacation.

Universities, research centers, cultural institutions and ministries have joined the trend with all kinds of proposals that, in the end, respond to the need of bringing in currency in order to finance their activities.

The National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba, for example, has organised the First International Colloquium on the work of the Beatles, to take place in October; and in December, the Cuban Society for International Law will hold a seminar called “Pan Americanism versus Latin Americanism.”

“Although we can’t say that Cuba lives off these events, we are far from the days in which we thought that foreigners came here to spend what little we had,” said one official of the Ministry of Tourism.