In this context, Travel2latam had the opportunity to speak with Reizel Vilorio, Vice Minister of Promotion and Marketing of the Secretariat of Tourism of Honduras.
What is the situation of tourism in Honduras and what do you foresee for the future in general?
Today we are here at IBTM Americas, an event in which as a country we want to promote the meetings industry, incentive travel, congresses, events and meetings that will help us strengthen our hotel offering at a national level through the different convention and event centers that we can carry out as a destination. Today Honduras is a cruise destination, with more than 1 million cruise passengers arriving who stay overnight, but do not spend the day in our country.
What we are looking for as Honduras is to have that tourist who stays more than three or four days in our destination and who has an average ticket purchase in our country. So betting on the meetings industry was something that we worked on together with Minister Yadira Gómez to be able to show the world what we have as opportunities. We seek to start with the smallest incentive trips and grow little by little as a destination until we have congresses and massive events in our country.
What is the current state of infrastructure and connectivity?
At the moment we are having a fairly strong public investment in the main airports of the country. San Pedro Sula is expanding the terminal and creating a Terminal B, with a new space for the arrival of new flights to our country. Roatán is also creating an international terminal and leaving the current one as a national terminal, with a fairly strong investment to strengthen air connectivity.
La Ceiba International Airport inaugurated its new wing to receive international flights. In this way, a significant public investment is being made in airport facilities to provide better service and air connectivity.
On the land side, we are making a fairly large investment in all roads nationwide, creating highways and motorways suitable for tourists coming to our country.
What can you tell me about the hotel infrastructure?
In terms of hotel infrastructure, we are creating management and co-management plans with some international and national franchises to be able to bring new investment to our destination.
Many new hotels are opening, especially Roatan, which has had a fairly strong investment from international chains. In addition, boutique hotels are beginning to open their operations on the island of Roatan, Mujil and Guanaca, and strong investment is being made in the main cities of the country with new hotel franchises that are arriving and strengthening the tourist offer.
What tourism products can Honduras offer?
Honduras has a variety of tourist products, the main one being sun and beach, located on the northern coast and the Caribbean of our country, with destinations such as Roatán, Utila, Guanaja, Tela, La Ceiba and Trujillo, which are extremely important for their crystal-clear waters and their proximity to the sea and all-inclusive hotels, as well as small hotels.
And we also have the land part, where there is all the archaeological history with all the archaeological parks of Copán Ruinas, the bridge on Lake Yojoa, Los Naranjos Park. We also have housing tourism.
Honduras is a key point in Central America for bird migration. We have migration from north to south and from south to north, which generates a large number of bird sightings, with more than 170, 200 birds. Today we are betting on birdwatching tourism, which is extremely important for tourists to stay overnight at our destination.
Are you thinking about other markets?
At the moment we are strengthening the existing ones, but we also want to strengthen new ones. We have just started relations with China, which is extremely important, and we are attending events and fairs where we are promoting our destination and where we have opportunities for growth. We are also looking to strengthen the European market. We have a lot of Spanish tourists, but also French and Italian tourists who are coming to our destination and we want to give it that boost so that we have even more.
Is there significant connectivity with Europe?
We currently have flights with two Spanish airlines, one that goes to San Pedro Sula, and another to Comayagua, but these two airlines are increasing flight frequencies and increasing destinations. We are no longer only receiving tourists from Madrid, but also from Barcelona. And we are also strengthening air connectivity with Italy.
Is Latin America part of the connectivity project?
Yes. We have air connectivity with flights to Panama and Colombia. We have a strong strategy with Colombians who are using our destination a lot, also many Costa Ricans and Panamanians are looking to move to the northern cone of Central America and we have seen interesting behavior with Argentine tourists. So we are looking and analyzing each of these market opportunities carefully in order to reach them.