After a crippling 70 percent decline in tourism arrivals in the months following the military ouster of former President Manuel Zelaya in June 2009, the Honduran tourism industry shouldered forward into 2010 and is now showing strong signs of recovery, thanks to a 91 percent increase in cruise ship arrivals.

The challenge now, according to Honduran Tourism Minister Nelly Jerez, is to build on that momentum to expand tourism throughout the country.

“We are not trying to reposition ourselves in the world of tourism, (but) rather position ourselves,” Jerez told The Nica Times during an interview earlier this year (NT, Aug. 6). “Honduras has never really been considered a tourism destination, aside from Roatán Island and the Copán ruins. Those are our two tourism poles, but the rest of Honduras has been relegated.”

Looking forward, she said, Honduras is expecting a big boost from the Bahía de Tela project, a $1 billion complex with five-star hotels, spas and championship golf. The project, which has been in a slow planning stage for 34 years, is finally coming out of the starting blocks. The cornerstone of the first hotel, which is scheduled to open in 2012, will be laid in the coming weeks, Jerez said.

“This is the most important project we have,” Jerez said of the tourism complex, which was once expected to rival Cancún, Mexico. “It’s a priority.”

Jerez is also planning ahead to 2012 – the same year the Maya Long Count calendar ends. While some doomsday prophets are predicting the ominous date will bring about the apocalypse in the form of a massive meteor strike or a reverse of the Earth’s magnetic field, in the meantime it’s become a handy marketing tool to promote Central America’s Maya ruins.

“We are planning great events; we want to organize trips and bring artists and have concerts there to promote the splendor that was Copán, the metropolis of the Maya civilization,” Jerez said.

And compared to the political and economic events of last year, the apocalypse doesn’t seem so scary anymore. Indeed, with the worst of the ’09 economic crisis behind, the “end of times” may just provide the new beginning that Central America’s tourism industry has been waiting for.”

Excerpt from: Tico Times.