Travel agents experience Trinidad’s comprehensive tourism product with “Motivos Cubanacan”

Photos: Theder Castro

“To sell a place, you must know it first,” says Jessica Valera, a sales executive at Alba Tours, who is visiting Cuba for the first time. “After the Motivos Cubanacan experience, we’ll have enough information to know what Cuba is like,” she comments while touring Trinidad, a heritage city nestled between the mountains and the coast of the south-central part of the island.

During the second day of this event, which has become an essential platform for the strategic promotion of Cuban tourism, a select delegation of 80 travel agents, managers and directors from the main source markets in the Americas participated in a program designed to showcase a comprehensive tourism product that combines heritage, nature and leisure.

The visit to the Valley of the Sugar Mills, an ecological and cultural system of exceptional value, served as the central focus for presenting a circuit of high historical significance. Here, the agents were able to assess the potential of this vast plantation, which was one of Cuba’s most important sugar-producing areas between the 17th and 19th centuries.

The Manaca-Iznaga Tower, a local symbol, stood as the highlight of the experience. The international representatives, with a key role in destination marketing, learned about the history and legends of this sugar plantation and its tower. They understood its past function as a surveillance mechanism and its transformation in recent decades into a tourist attraction that symbolizes a Cuban historical narrative and enriches any cultural tour.

The preservation of haciendas with neoclassical architecture, such as Manaca-Iznaga, demonstrates the viability of sustainable tourism based on heritage rehabilitation. This argument generated great interest among the agents, who envisioned the possibility of designing multi-day tours that integrate visits to these sites with other attractions.

Yaikel Alejandro Juviel Reina, Cubanacan’s supervising delegate in Trinidad, told Sol de Cuba that including this region of the country in the tour was already a privilege for those who promote the destination here and for those who visit it. “The challenge was to create, in record time, a program that linked each of the activities at our facilities with the significance of the city of Trinidad, the Valley of the Sugar Mills and the Ancón Peninsula.”

The day culminated at the Hotel Ancón with a nautical festival and an afternoon at the beach, showcasing the combinations that Cubanacan can offer. This closing event allowed the agents to experience the opportunity to combine cultural immersion with moments of recreation and relaxation on the beach in a single destination.

With an itinerary that extends through Saturday including other destinations such as Villa Clara and Varadero, “Motivos Cubanacan” demonstrates, firsthand, the diversity of the national tourism product.