By HOWARD ROSENZWEIG

Are new niche products Honduras' ticket to increasing tourist visits? In my Copan Update column I often like to talk about new niche products that Honduran tourism can explore in the future. One product that "vale la pena explorar" (is worth exploring) is "event tourism." For those unacquainted with the term, it simply entails the staging of some sort of event. It could be a musical festival, a symposium of authors, an eco-challenge type trek competition, a mountain bikers convention, etc. The possibilities are limited only by the imagination of the organizers. For those who are intimately acquainted with the United States and Europe, if you have an interest, no matter how bizarre or way out it may seem, you most certainly will find a group of people who share that same interest and as humans are social beings, they enjoy meeting, greeting and schmoozing with those who share similar interests.

As a case in point lets take the small, rural, out of the way town of Sturgis, South Dakota, which is not exactly a hot spot on anyone's tourist must see list. However, fijese bien (check this out), Sturgis is home to none other than the annual Harley Davidson motorcycle rally, where Harley owners from all around the United States, Canada and Europe strap on their leathers, rev up their shiny chrome Harleys and spend a week in Sturgis. The event draws some 350,000 visitors during the once per year event and the town pulls in millions in revenues.

So there you have it. Take a bunch of people with a particular passion, in this case Harley motorcycles, get 'em all together at a given place once a year, offer a bevy of things for them to do -- contests, competitions, sporting events, headline musical acts -- and you've got a niche event that can be repeated year after year, after year. It's a virtual money machine.

Now you may ask yourself, that's all well and good for a little dinky U.S. town. They've got the ways and means to attract event tourists, but what can we do in our little corner of the world? How, by golly, can we attract event tourists to Honduras if we are having such a gosh darned time just trying to attract regular tourists? Well, funny you should ask, my fine-feathered Honduras This Week reading friend... Besides, you may ask what does Honduras have that could translate into attracting niche event tourists?

Well, try these on for size: How about attracting a yearly divers' convention to Roatan, or a Caribbean musical festival on the island of Utila (for those who remember those pre-Mitch days, Plantation Beach Resort on the Hog Cays used to offer up an annual music festival)? How about a yearly symposium on Mayan archaeology at Copan, or a yearly eco-adventure week in far out places like La Mosquitia or Olancho? How about an annual windsurfers get together at Punta Sal National Park outside of Tela, or a Garifuna music and cultural celebration in Trujillo or a once a year ecotourism conference (there used to be a yearly conference in La Ceiba that was well attended and very successful). Not specialized enough for you? How about attracting wreck divers or extreme sports enthusiasts or cigar connoisseurs (Honduras produces some of the world's finest).

The possibilities are endless. What it takes is a person with vision, determination and a knack for promotion and marketing to grab the niche tourism ball and run with it. Can the "Miracle of Sturgis" be repeated in Honduras? Could we realistically hold a yearly event that would draw thousands of tourists to Honduran shores? The optimist in me says yes, but the jaded expat in me at the same time tempers my enthusiasm and tells me that this would be very, very difficult.

Here's something you probably never thought much about: Did you know that the cultivated shrimp industry in Honduras pulls in some $120 million annually. Approximately 20 percent is sold to Europe and the lion's share to the United States. Shrimp have now become one of the nation's largest exports, right up there with coffee and bananas.

And back to the topic of event tourism, last week in San Pedro Sula experts from Central America, the United States, Canada and the Caribbean who work in the cultivated shrimp industry held an international symposium. The event, in addition to providing an important forum for the cultivated shrimp industry, brought in thousands of bucks in the form of hotel stays, food, beverages, salaries and tips to the workers who served the guests, fares to taxi drivers and dollars spent at San Pedro Sula nightspots and bars.

So right here we have an excellent, current, up to date, real life, textbook example of the possibilities of staging event tourism right here in our own backyard. It does work, it does bring in much needed dollars into the local economy, it does have a rollercoaster effect of turning people on to Honduras.

Having just got back from a brief three-day weekend outing to the North Coast, I'd like to offer a few observations. Our first stop was the beachfront village of Omoa, located about 20 minutes from Honduras' main Caribbean port, Puerto Cortes, and an hour from San Pedro Sula. Omoa has long been a popular weekend beach destination for hot and sweaty Sampedranos, as the residents of San Pedro Sula are commonly called. A number of wealthy Sampedranos have built weekend beach homes on the stretch between Puerto Cortes and Omoa.

Visitors to the beaches of Omoa primarily hail from the San Pedro Sula middle class who pack up the car or pickup with the extended family for a day of sun, beach and food. The beach at Omoa is set in a very pretty bay fringed by the mountains of the Merendon Range. In the distance one can see the far off mountains near the Guatemalan- Honduran frontier.

The water is dark, a bit murky and the beach a bit dirty with trash and other debris. There are a number of simple eateries that specialize in seafood, most of which are Honduran owned with a few foreign-owned establishments (U.S., Canadian, Dutch and Swiss).

Omoa boasts the finest colonial era fort in Honduras that can be toured. There is also a museum at the site.

One of the first things that strikes the visitor is the state of the road -- it is dirt and a bit rough at spots from Cortes to Omoa. The village of Omoa itself is pleasant enough, quiet streets, little traffic, neat well kept homes, friendly residents. Moving down to the beach there are a number of simple, basic hotels that cater primarily to weekend visitors from San Pedro Sula. Bus service to Omoa from Cortes is quick and efficient; however, the quality of buses leaves much to be desired, most are old, dilapidated ex-U.S. school buses that are packed to the brim with locals coming and going to Puerto Cortes.

On the beach are a number of simple eateries, seafood of course being the specialty. Considering that San Pedro Sula, Honduras' industrial capital and second largest city with a population of some 500,000 is only 1 hour away by car and 1 1/2 hours by bus, it is perplexing to see the lack of tourism development and infrastructure in Omoa. My last trip to Omoa was some 12 years ago and basically it hasn't changed all that much, save for the new beachfront restaurants, a few new small hotels and some of the new developments outside of town geared toward wealthy Hondurans who want to build a home or dock their boat.

There is a general air that not much is going on in Omoa, the beach could use a good clean up and there is a lack of tourist services that one would expect at other beach destinations. One primary reason for this situation is that Omoa's visitors are primarily Hondurans who due to a difficult economy must stretch every lempira, so Omoa is not a place where visitors will spend money on lots of frills and extras. Consequently, tourism development at Omoa beach has never really taken off.

Foreign visitors to Omoa are primarily backpackers, either on their way to or from Guatemala. The border crossing at Corinto into Guatemala is now open and a Honduran customs office has been opened recently. There are big plans and even larger hopes for a future paved highway linking Puerto Cortes and Puerto Barrios in Guatemala, the two main Central American Caribbean ports.

Our second stop on our North Coast trip was Tela located about 1 1/2 hours from San Pedro Sula, same as Omoa. Tela is a larger town located just off the main San Pedro Sula - La Ceiba highway. There are a number of national parks and protected areas within close proximity: Punta Sal National Park (or Jeanette Kawas National Park), Punto Izopo and the Lancetilla Botanical Gardens.

Tela boasts a fairly well developed tourism infrastructure (by Honduran standards). There are a number of hotels in all price ranges, plenty of restaurants and a full-service professionally run tour operator specializing in local eco-tours to nearby parks and reserves. There is an active Chamber of Tourism that is taking its first tentative steps to try to create an environment in which tourism will flourish. The beach is wide, quite clean and white and stretches all the way from Punta Sal to Triunfo.

On the outskirts of Tela there are a number of new projects going up -- a new rustic hotel in Triunfo, a beachfront housing/mixed use development owned by Canadians in San Juan, as well as a number of beachfront homes that have been erected in recent years by wealthy Hondurans, especially in the area between San Juan and Tornabe. In addition, the long touted Tela Bay Project has raised hopes and expectations that Tela Bay will take off in the future.

Tela has a small yet growing expat community, most of whom are involved in one way or another in tourism, most hail from the United States, Canada and Italy. This expat tourism sector has brought new vitality and vigor to Tela's sleepy, Caribbean port town atmosphere. There are now a few very nice foreign-owned restaurants, small hotels and an excellent professionally run tour operator. These foreigners have brought new ideas, new ways of doing things and new vigor to Tela.

The town of Tela itself is quite pleasant; old wooden structures, residents young and old peddle about on big, black shiny bicycles, a vibrant indigenous culture of Garifunas with their own language, customs, music, and foods add a multicultural dimension to this funky ex-banana port town.

Visitors to Tela come mainly from San Pedro Sula as well as inland North Coast towns like Progreso and Olanchito. In addition, a good number of foreign travellers make Tela a stopover on their way to or from the Bay Islands and Copan Ruinas. Tela has had some serious problems in the past with foreign tourists being targeted by thieves, but recent interviews with Tela residents indicate that the security problem has been all but resolved and tourists are no longer the targets of young thieves. Omoa on the other hand is a very quiet and tranquil place where according to one foreign hotel owner, "tourists can sleep on the beach" if they so desired without the thought of being robbed. Unfortunately, in and around Tela this is not a recommended option for an inexpensive night's lodging.

So what can lessons can we learn from Tela and Omoa? First off and most importantly that Honduras has plenty of quality tourism product to offer. What is lacking is that we have not been able to fully take advantage of what we have. Omoa has fine beach, good seafood, a nearby waterfall, access to Guatemala and a major metropolitan area just minutes away. Tela has some of the finest Caribbean ecotourism possibilities in all of Central America. The potential is there. What is lacking is infrastructure, government support and most importantly a dynamic, forward looking, investment minded private sector. Without the above, coastal towns like Tela and Omoa will never reach their full potential and Honduras will loose out on hundreds of millions of dollars in incoming tourist dollars.

KLM, Royal Dutch Airlines, has opened an office in San Pedro Sula. KLM serves 80 nations and 150 destinations around the world. Hopefully one of these days (or years) Honduras will join the list of countries served by KLM. For the moment, at least you will have to settle for purchasing your ticket at the KLM office in San Pedro Sula and then making your way to Guatemala to board your KLM flight in Guatemala City, which is the closest city served by the airline. Hopefully, Honduras new open skies policy will open the doors to additional air carriers offering service to Honduras.

Remember what Chicken Little said about the sky falling? Well, the archaeological site at Copan Ruinas now has its own version of that famous chicken story. The Copan Sculpture Museum built at the ruins site is experiencing some serious structural problems. Massive supporting roof beams have cracked, forcing the closure of the museum. The Honduran Institute of Anthroplogy and History (IHT), the government institution charged with managing and maintaining the ruins as well as the museum, has done nothing save erect a huge provisional steel beam to prop up the massive beam that has cracked. The museum remained open to the public, temporary beams and all, up until a major tremor a few weeks back caused additional structural damage, forcing its closure. Now folks, we are talking the major, best, most awesome Mayan museum this side of Mexico City. The Copan Sculpture Museum is not your run-of-the-mill Central American type museum -- this is the real deal, a truly world class facility.

So what has the IHT done to fix the damage and get the museum up and running? Well, as far as we can see from here in Copan Ruinas, not a whole heck of a lot. I mean, jeez Louise, tourists come from around the world to marvel at the wonders of Copan. For most of these visitors, this is a once in a lifetime trek and will never return to Honduras, no less Copan again, and they are missing out on one of the greatest, most spectacular, eye-popping sights of them all: The Mayan Sculpture Museum. So, for those of us who labor in the tourist trade here in Copan, we sit back in our hammocks watching the sun trace through the hot afternoon sky and wonder: "When, oh, when ...oh, when will the IHT come forward and invest some of the millions of lempiras that come in by way of entry ticket sales sold at the ruins and fix the museum."

According to figures published in La Prensa, world tourism trends will experience some changes over the next 20 years. Europe, for example will experience a decrease in its share of tourists. In 1995, for example, Europe pulled in 59.5 percent of the world's tourists. By the year 2020, they will attract 46.1 percent. Asia will gain ground. In 1995, Asia attracted 14.3 percent of the world's tourists, by 2020 they will draw 25 percent. The Middle East in 1995 drew a meager 2.5 percent, by 2020 it will pull in 4.5 percent. Africa pulled in 3.5 percent in 1995, by 2020 the figure will be 5 percent. Closer to home, the Americas attracted 19.5 percent in 1995, by 2020 tourism experts are predicting a decline to 18.2 percent.

Where will Honduras fit in to the scheme of things? Well, I tell ya' it can't get no worse, that's for darned sure! There is only one way to go from here, in this new, about to take off millennium, and that is up. Honduras pulls in a measly $150 million in a good year. This year will register even less due to the lingering effects of the negative international press after Hurricane Mitch. To put this in perspective, Costa Rica earns $150 million in tourism dollars in less than two months time! So I say again -- and risk repetition -- by 2020 Honduras has got to be hosting more tourists and earning more tourist dollars.

Even if we sit here engaged in one of our favorite local pastimes -- lying in our garden hammocks -- tourism will go up, no doubt about it. Now, how much it will go up is anybody's guess. If we continue on our present laid-back course, it will go up, bit by bit by bit, never really realizing our full potential. But if the government and private sector really get the proverbial lead out and aggressively court international investment in the tourism and make tourism Job One in Honduras for the 21st century, then we've got a shot at the title fight. If we don't make tourism a national priority, then be prepared to take baby steps for the next 20 years because tourism will never really take off in Honduras. Which will it be? Baby steps or Job One? To tell ya' the truth, I haven't the slightest cotton pickin' idea.