In this context, Travel2latam spoke with the Minister of Tourism of Honduras, Yadira Gómez.
From a tourist point of view, what can Honduras offer?
In Honduras, since two years ago when a new vision of tourism in the country was taken, we have focused on offering experiences to tourism. Through the destination management organization, we have 11 regions that were previously unknown or very little known, but with great natural, cultural and gastronomic wealth.
Honduras has been known mainly for two poles, on the one hand for the Bay Islands, where there is excellent connectivity, with direct flights to New York, Dallas, Miami. Mostly tourists from the United States visit us in Honduras, and North America represents more than 70% of visitors. In addition, many cruise passengers are arriving. We have two cruise ports in Roatán and a mobility of more than 1,200,000 cruise passengers who visit us per year. There is an important infrastructure, and we have just inaugurated this year an investment of 60 million in a Grand Roatán hotel complex with more than 120 rooms. We also have hotels like the Henry Morgan, owned by some Italians with 150. We have four or five large hotels and the rest are medium and small, more local. But we can say that we have good infrastructure, good roads, connectivity and hotels in the Roatán area.
Another region and another center of tourist development well known internationally is Copán, in the ruins of Copán of the Mayan vestiges, where two days ago I was with the Chinese vice minister of tourism and culture, where we are going to have a very large museum for exhibitions. Copán was like the Paris of the Mayan route, it is one of the most important cities.
But apart from that, we have many other riches, for example, the part of the Atlantic coast where there is already a hotel that is leading it. In addition, we have white sand beaches and areas of protected natural wealth. We have the second botanical garden park in Latin America that was built at the time when the banana plantations arrived. We have Cuero and Salado, which is a region where two rivers meet and where you can see the manantine. The Punta Hisopo and Punta Sal areas are protected areas, world heritage sites where you can observe many birds.
We are betting on bird tourism in that area, where there is already some infrastructure but we want to create more and attract investors. We have La Ceiba at an hour that has an international airport and mountain hotels, where a lot of canoeing is practiced in the rivers. We also have living cultures that are the Garífunas, an ethnic group of ours, who came from Africa and have kept their traditions, language, customs and gastronomy. We also have Trujillo, although in connectivity we are a little weak going there, but it is one of the most beautiful areas we have. Then there is a mountain area that is the Lenca route.
We have many things to offer the world, we are in the process of improving connectivity and infrastructure, and we are working with communities, the government and the private sector that have helped us a lot.
What experiences does your country offer?
We have the experience of going to the areas where the tribe is, seeing how the looms are made, seeing the cultivation of strawberries and tasting them. There is the opportunity to see coffee cultivation and end up having a cup of coffee. We also have a lake and that area is very rich because many birds migrate there and that is where we are promoting bird tourism with bird watching towers so that people can go and observe. There are also cocoa crops there, so tourists can go to see the cocoa process from picking the fruit to producing their own chocolate.
We also have religious tourism, mainly in the city of Comayagua, which was the capital of Honduras at some time when the Spanish arrived. We have many vestiges, cathedrals, and many people visit us during Holy Week.
Do you have any news regarding connectivity?
We have a new airport that was inaugurated two years ago and flights from Spain are arriving directly on our connection with Europe, apart from flights from the US, Canada and Central America. We are seeing how we connect to South America and thinking that the hub could be Colombia, because we have already opened flights with Colombia directly through Avianca. We also want to have a close relationship with Mexico. We already have direct flights with Aeroméxico and we are twinning some other cities.
From a promotional point of view, is Honduras going to exploit something in particular?
I believe that we are going to strengthen the two points that we have. Copán, through the archaeological ruins, and now we are going to have the help of the Chinese government, which is going to make us a large museum where we will be able to take out all our relics that we have stored so that the world knows them. And on the other hand, we want to enhance the Atlantic coast area, Tela and La Ceiba are two important regions.
What is the origin of the people who visit them?
Mainly our biggest tourism is from Spain. There are already Spanish hotels, for example, in Roatán we have a Paradise Island hotel. At some point we had a relationship with Barceló in La Ceiba, and we are reactivating these relationships. People from France and Italy visit us from Europe, but it is not the strong point yet.