Caribbean & Central America - May 2015 (ISSN 1741-4458)

Boosting tourism: As well as mining, the FSLN government is also concentrating its efforts on the tourism sector – and environmental tourism in particular – with plans to target the European market. According to a press release issued by ProNicaragua this month, Nicaragua is hoping to lure tourists with “tours of active and inactive volcanoes, nature preserves, pristine forests, archaeological sites and colonial cities, as well as the chance to see wild birds or whales”. Thierry Lippert, charge d'affaires at Luxembourg's embassy in Nicaragua and the European Union (EU)’s office in Managua, recently organised a Euroforum on sustainable tourism in the Central American country. According to Sylvia de Levy, the president of the Nicaraguan national tourism association (Canatur), some 7% of the 1.32m foreign tourists who visited Nicaragua last year were Europeans.