Honduras This Week Travel and Tourism

There are many things to do and see in San Pedro Sula

By WENDY GRIFFIN

Most visitors to Honduras, whether long or short term, will probably spend at lest one night in San Pedro Sula as this is where international and national transportation connect. Most people seem to treat their stay in San Pedro Sula as dead time, but the city actually offers a number of things for tourists to do.

1. Shop for Honduran souvenirs and cigars. The handicraft shops across from the Gran Hotel Sula on the street toward Pizza Hut and those on the street to the left-hand side of the hotel are among the best places to look for handicrafts and other souvenirs from central, northern and western Honduras. Surprisingly, the other places on your itinerary like Copan, the Bay Islands, and Tela all have few Honduran crafts for sale.

Do not forget that food items like fresh spices, heat-and-serve nacatamales, and Honduran rum or wines also make interesting presents. These are available at supermarkets across from the Cathedral and on the street behind City Hall. A wide range of books on Honduras for those who read Spanish are available at bookstores such as Libreria Cultural one block up from Gran Hotel Sula. They carry Honduran cookbooks as well as historical and literary books.

2. Visit the San Pedro Sula Archaeological and History Museum, which has an extensive, beautifully laid out collection. Unfortunately, there are no English explanations even though the archaeologists involved in setting up the museum exhibits all spoke English. The gift shop here is quite nice. There is also the Museo de la Naturaleza, which only recently opened.

3. Look at, and perhaps purchase, Honduran paintings. One block south of Central Park is the MAYMO art gallery that features internationally famous Honduran painters such as Benigno Gomez, Maury Flores, and Carlos Garay. They also display primitivist painters such as Roque Zelaya, Tulio and Antonio Vasquez, and Rigoberto Melendez.

4. Listen to free Marimba concerts in Central Park. The San Pedro Sula City Council maintains the usual Marimba group that usually play once a week in front of City Hall in the early evening. Sometimes these presentations include high school or primary school Ladino folk dance groups. The Ministry of Tourism Ladino folk dance group is based in San Pedro Sula and can be contracted by groups through hotels.

5. Most of the well known dance bands like "Los Gatos Bravos," Banda Ibanes and Gran Banda are based out of San Pedro Sula. They play fairs, discotheques and clubs. There is usually live music somewhere in San Pedro Sula all through the weekend. These groups play mostly merengue music, with some cumbia and punta. After seeing Banda Ibanes one resident commented, "They are just like a Las Vegas act with choreographed dancing, lights, and everything." (Continues in right column)

6. Study medicinal plants with the medicinal plant people beside the Honduran Telecommunications Company (HONDUTEL), not far from Wendy's and Kodak Express off Central Park.

7. Enjoy plays that are presented to sell out crowds for many weeks at the Centro Cultural Sampedrano. One recent show was "El Enemigo del Pueblo", a play commemorating the life and death of Tela environmental activist Jeannette Kawas.

8. Train buffs will enjoy taking a ride on the Chiquita Banana Company's train through banana and African palm plantations. The train goes to Tela, Progreso and Puerto Cortes. As it goes along it picks up container cars of bananas. Part of the enjoyment are the tickets with names like km. 101 and places named "en palma." The old passenger cars and railroad ties were made of mahogany. The terminal is behind Hotel Bolivar, two blocks from Central Park.

Visiting San Pedro Sula is about seeing Honduras as it is today. This can mean seeing the high rollers that frequent the Arab-Honduran Club, which invites tourists to visit. Or visiting Garifunas and Lencas who have become involved in the urban sprawl. COMSIDA, located right in the middle of Central Park, will answer your questions about AIDS in Honduras. At Hogar Amor y Vida people can learn about the situation of orphans who are HIV positive (tel. 559-3776).

If you are interested in learning about modern Honduras, San Pedro Sula has many stories to tell.

Copan Update

By HOWARD ROSENZWEIG

This week we continue with last week's article on the tourism industry in The Netherlands and Honduras. Can we in Honduras learn some lessons from the Dutch experience? Now, I know what you're thinking right now, "next thing you know we'll have coffee shops dispensing Honduran (home grown) dope and legalized prostitution in downtown Tegucigalpa, San Pedro Sula, La Ceiba, and even Copan Ruinas! Obviously, what works in The Netherlands cannot be transplanted abroad, nor would most Hondurans welcome the Dutch model here. However, I think we can learn some lessons from the Dutch experience in tourism.

Former Dutch Tourism Board President Hans Cornelissen stated recently that "despite the size of the tourism industry, it is still undervalued by the government... the economic affairs ministry knows the worth of the tourism sector, but other ministries still forget to involve us when they make plans." This is something we in Honduras can definitely relate to.

Cornelissen also warned about tough competition from other countries -- both nearby and far away. He pointed out that "a few days in Bali or Mexico are just as easy to organize as a weekend on the sea in Holland." Here in Honduras, wealthy Hondurans would sooner spend a four-day weekend "shopping till they drop" in a Miami mall than go relax on a quiet, white sand beach resort in Roatan. In these days of global, "here today-gone tomorrow" tourism, competition among tourism destinations is fierce. Mundo Maya, for example, consists of five nations: Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. "Which one to visit if I only have a two week vacation?" "All of them?" "Sorry bud, but no time, I gotta choose one, maybe two..." You get the idea, the strongest players win.... the weak players shuffle home.

Well, bach to the Dutch experience... Cornelissen also spoke of how to cultivate a country's image or repetition abroad -- a crucial component of promoting tourism. Amsterdam, for example, suffered an image problem: dirty, crime- and drug-ridden, lack of culture, etc. Cornelissen fought back by organizing cultural events, targeting specialty magazines (for example, for flower lovers), etc. The point is that how the world perceives a city or country is a key component in developing the destination touristically. There is nothing worse than bad press to put a dent in your nations tourism promotion package day.

Honduras could use a good dose of "good image", we need to show the world what we've got to be proud of (La Mosquitia, Bay Island, Copan, Celaque, friendly people, undeveloped beaches, low prices, etc.). Can we in Honduras follow the Dutch example? Of course not. Can we learn from the Dutch experience? I think we can.

Howard Rosenzweig, a U.S. expatriate living in the Village of Copan Ruinas, is the owner of the Casa de Cafe Bed and Breakfast.

Copan Update

By HOWARD ROSENZWEIG

These days in Honduras, the buzz words among government tourism officials charged with promoting Honduras abroad as a tourism destination seem to center on the letter "M": money and marketing. The philosophy seems to boil down to spend as much money as possible on promotion in target markets (the United States and Canada, for example), on magazine advertisements in specialty magazines like Audobon and Skin Diver, and as a consequence more tourists will come. It's kind of like the Kevin Costner film, Field of Dreams ("if you build it they will come") -- which becomes, "If we market and promote Honduras they (tourists) will come." Now, this is all well and good since Honduras desperately needs more tourists. We have many empty hotel rooms, miles of uncrowded white sand beaches, large tracts of virgin forests and quaint colonial towns with not a tourist in sight. For a determined "niche market" of tourists (those seeking an out-of-the-way adventure in an unspoiled, non-tourist country), Honduras is paradise found.

Honduras is in its "diapers phase" in terms of its tourism development, it's just beginning to get going. Perhaps it may be interesting or useful to look at some experiences of one of the major players in the tourism world today, a small country that has taken great strides to cultivate, develop and nourish its tourism industry -- The Netherlands.

Hans Cornelissen just retired after 18 years of heading the Dutch Tourism Board. Compare that achievement to Honduras, where every four years a new director of the Honduran Institute of Tourism is appointed. I mean heck, "It takes a full year just to figure out what the heck is going on!"

In 1980, foreign tourists spent some 4.3 billion guilders (US$2.1 billion) a year (that's billions folks!) By the end of this century the figure will be well over 11 billion Dutch guilders. Some 45,000 companies operating in the tourism sector provide employment for some 300,000 people. In total, tourism is worth some 42 billion Dutch guilders annually to the economy.

Tourism in Honduras currently rakes in some US$159 million (that's millions folks!) per year, placing it at the number four or five spot as a major earner of foreign currency in Honduras. However, within just a couple of years it is estimated that tourism will be the number one money earner in the Honduran economy. Remember, lasts week's article when I discussed Costa Rica? (They pulled in US$700 million from tourism last year) ...and Honduras has a wider breath and depth of tourism products than Costa Rica. So the potential here is obvious.

Despite the apparent dissimilarities between The Netherlands and Honduras, the two nations do share some experiences in common.

To be continued.

Howard Rosenzweig, a U.S. expatriate living in the Village of Copan Ruinas, is the owner of the Casa de Cafe Bed and Breakfast.