Camagüey has sufficientattractions to turn into a forced destination for those who from other latitudes visit the biggest of the Antilles, and there were not few those who in the year 2017 stated the marvels of a hereditary metropolis and its refreshing beaches.

It was the first time that Leticia León, a young woman of Madrid, was coming to this city, and she expressed to Radio Cadena Agramonte that in the hotel Camino de Hierro had a very agreeable stay, “the rooms are very wide and the hotel is very well, and on having been in the center, it has been easy to visit other places to us”.

Similar preference showed, but for the spa Saint Lucia, a tourist who was coming from Canada, and although she has been in Varadero, Cienfuegos, Cayo Largo, Holguín and Havana, “more I like Camagüey”, she annotated.

Saint Lucia: Cubanacán and other foreign chains

The Saint Lucia beach benefited this year with the commercialization and administration shared with foreign entities, which answers to a strategy of the Department of the Tourism.

Alberto GarcíaDomínguez, the first vice-president of the Group Cubanacán in the country, said that for the contract of commercialization of the hotel Villaggio Bravo Caracol, with the tour-operator Alpitour, current from 2016, added to beginnings of the present calendar the shared administration of the ancient Gran Club Saint Lucia, with the Spanish chain Roc Hotels.

“It assures clients in big quantity and the new contracts must improve the occupation and impose superior quality standards”, added the manager.

At the head of the Roc Saint Lucia is Luca AndreoniBerti, general manager of the installation, who aimed that “this hotel, in a locality possibly not much known in Europe, is among the first 20 hotels of Cuba, and this can be a very interesting thing at the time of deciding where to spend the holidays, and the answer is: in Roc Saint Lucia, Saint Lucia, Camagüey”.

Of the effects of the hurricane Irma did not escape the tourist pole; nevertheless the recovery only took some weeks and gradually there began to receive visitors who appreciated the positive change and the comfort of every infrastructure for the safety of the clients.

The constant progress to receive the summer period and the current winter stage characterized the chore of the hotel facilities in Saint Lucia.

On this matter, Julio del Toro Orozco delegated of the Group Cubanacán in Camagüey, emphasized that there materialized actions of repair and change of image. “The tourist operation has its support on the market of Canada, and one does not neglect the management with the internal market, which one of the principal clients constitutes of the pole”.

 City tourism, without regressions

 To Saint Lucia there has already joined for several years the city of Camagüey, as a product inserted in the form of circuits, and in 2017, an increase was stated in the tourists' arrival, as affirms Leonor Sabido Bonito, specialist of Public and Commercial Relations of the hotel complex Cubanacán City.

“Our main market is that of the United States, in spite of the limitations that there imposes the blockade of the Government of this country against Cuba; followed by the Italian. This year we attacked the organization of the principal areas of the complex and there joined the hotel Colonial one, with ten rooms, a bar - coffee and a shop for the sale of tobacco Havana cigars”.

From big impact, there resulted the chain Meliá Hotels International, with 27 years of operations in Cuba, which signed contract of administration of the Gran Hotel, and of the hotels Colón and Camagüey.

The Cuban Agency of News published that the hiring, which must become effective in 2018, will raise the quality of the rooming capacity in the metropolis from the reshaping of the infrastructure, and march according to the due thing, in accordance with information offered in a recent press conference, for Sergio Ferreiro delegated of the Department of Tourism in the province.

Neither stayed behind the extra-hotel offers of the group Palmares, with emblematic units in Saint Lucia and the city of Camagüey, between them the OcioClub, which attracted several villagers for its attractive equipment.

And if of recreation we talk, the facilities of Campismo Popular stand out between the most accessible for the national clients, with options that caught the attention especially in the summer.

2018 will be of important challenges for the tourism in Camagüey, since it is a question of consolidating the development in the city and of promoting even more the commercialization of the hotels in Saint Lucia, joined to the advance of the investment process that is executed in the north cays.

To these targets, the workpeople of the sector will contribute with their management, even more those who work in houses of revenue and not state restaurants, all with the only end to position the province as a destination of preference because of its hereditary values. (Photos of the author)

Translated by Linet Acuña Quilez