20 / Oct / 2004

As part of a recent TACA Airlines initiative, a meeting was held at El Salvador’s Comalapa International Airport, where representatives of the Convention Bureaus of Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Costa Rica and Panama prepared a proposal to create the Federation of Convention Bureaus of Central America. The proposal will go before the Central American Tourism Council for approval on July 7 in El Salvador.

“The Convention Bureaus of each country work to facilitate the organization of seminars, conventions and congresses, proposing their respective countries as candidates to host these events,” says Alejandra Rodriguez, Manager of Commercial Promotion at TACA. “TACA is helping them to stimulate this market, find incentives and join forces to attract more such events to the region.”

Each Convention Bureau operates independently with the support of each respective country’s Institute of Tourism - except for Costa Rica, which operates through an association of convention organizers. All will be part of the proposed Federation, which will work to strengthen and unify the industry and offer a wider array of options. “It is through efforts such as these that we achieve synergy throughout Central America,” says Claudia Arenas, Director of Communications at TACA. “It allows us to attract a greater number of tourists with greater buying power to the region. TACA challenges tourism to become a key source of foreign revenue for our countries.”

Rodriguez adds, “working hand in hand with the Bureaus assures us support in promoting the region as a center for conventions for international organizations.”

One of the first items on the Federation’s agenda will be to work in cooperation with TACA to generate statistics on the international convention market. Such figures are currently sparse.