Caribbean & Central America - August 2012 (ISSN 1741-4458)

Boosting tourism: Last month the inaugural flight by the newly created Nicaragua Airways, in alliance with the Italian air carrier Blue Panorama, took off - the first service to provide a direct connection between Nicaragua and Europe. It follows the start of a new service, which began in May, by Nicaragua’s La Costeña airlines between Managua and a newly constructed airport in the remote southern Caribbean jungle town of San Juan de Nicaragua — formerly known as Greytown. The new airport, which cost some US$13m to build according to government figures, is part of President Daniel Ortega’s efforts to boost tourism on both ends of the San Juan River. The flight lasts an hour and 20 minutes, compared with the previous nine hours it took between the capital and San Juan de Nicaragua. Last April Ortega announced that another airport, La Paloma, located on another popular tourist destination, Ometepe Island, was 90% ready, following an investment of US$10m.    

    The government-aligned online publication el19digital.com reported that in recent years the ruling Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN) government has invested some US$65m in strengthening airport infrastructure, including improvements to the capital’s Aeropuerto Internacional Augusto C. Sandino (with some US$15m) and the construction of a new airport in the North Atlantic Autonomous Region (Raan), with some US$35m, among other improvements.

•  Tourism up

Nicaragua’s national tourism institute (Intur) recently reported that tourist numbers were up 15.7% in the first quarter of the year over the same period of 2011, to total 300,000. The report did not provide any updated revenue details. According to government calculations, Nicaragua received one million tourists overall in 2011, with an average daily spend of US$44. According to Intur, 12% of the 8.5m tourists that travel to Central America every year visit Nicaragua, a proportion the Ortega government is seeking to boost to 15.5% by 2020.