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Tourism in Venezuela grows in options and progresses towards socialism
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Caracas, Aug 27 ABN (Lena Jahn).- Progressive incorporation of organized communities, communal councils and other ways of people's participation working to support tourist activities, together with public and private institutions, is the best way to describe the actual stage of tourism in Venezuela.
Following the principles of participatory and protagonic democracy and the values of cooperation, joint responsibility and solidarity, different social actors join efforts aiming to position the tourist activity as a strategic factor of social and economic diversity and sustainable development of Venezuela.
Following such premise, the Ministry of People's Power for Tourism (Mintur, Spanish acronym) has stressed its focus on recovering the tourist assets which were in hands of the private sector or the State's through other institutions.
The statement was issued by the Minister of that office, Olga Cecilia Azuaje, during an exclusive interview with the Bolivarian Agency of News (ABN, Spanish acronym).
Azuaje recalled that last year, during first stage of her administration, she focused all the activity in recovering the deteriorated, abandoned and even out of order spaces.
'The idea is that Mintur, as ruling body, start to manage and commercialize those assets, refuting the allegation about that all the spaces rescued by the State lose their qualities; on the contrary, those are in better conditions and more affordable for the population,' she stated.
Communitarian tourism
Restoring the management of tourism, through one of the 26 enabling laws carried out by the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez Frías, comprises a series of actions addressed to establish the activity in a field to strengthen the human capacities, reactivate our spaces and revalue our patrimony, as well as in an instrument of social inclusion.
The information is expressed on the recently modified Organic Act of Tourism, through its Statement of Motives, in which is clear the purpose of vindicating our history as part of an opportunity to educate us and build a new socialist society.
One of the goals of the new regulations is to change the old concept of tourism, which considered the activity as an industry. Now, providing leadership to communities and social organizations turns into the aim to be achieved.
'Tourism has constitutional rank; we have a legislation that empowers everybody to integrate into the national tourist system, which is now considered as a communitarian activity,' remarked Minister Azuaje.
She explained that the possibility of developing places for entertainment and leisure around the community is every time broader. 'In Merida (state), for instance, we went to a place in Mucuchies (a village in the Andean region) in which we have supported people from the mountains who turn their houses into inns, providing to visitors the possibility of making real tourism at low costs,' she exemplified.
According to Azuaje, in virtue of this new law, the communities take to Mintur projects of development with aim to become into tourism service providers. 'They can ask for a loan and build facilities as inns, thematic parks, gastronomic areas, etc.'
Investing to recover areas
Following the rules of the new legal instrument in matters of tourism, the Minister of that office explained how they have been investing constantly in the rescue and reparation of the spaces considered unusable, through an investment that surpasses the quantity of 60 million bolivares fuertes.
'We have done it without asking for special assets to the Executive; the surplus stock of the profit generated by the assets managed by the State has allowed us to reinvest,' she made clear.
In catering matters stand out the works carried out at the Hotel del Lago, in Maracaibo city, with 84 rooms recovered; the Hotel Tacarigua, Valencia city, and the Hotel Guayana, in Puerto Ordaz city, both of them with relevant improvements in the pool areas; the Hotel Prado Rio, in Merida city, which now counts with a building of more than 80 rooms additional to the huts; among others.
Azuaje also remarks the recovery of the Hotel Guaicamacuto, the former Sheraton hotel in La Guaira, Vargas state, which was devastated by the washout in the year 1999 and which was then abandoned by the private sector that managed it.
Furthermore, Mintur has been working on the expropriation of the Hotel Hibiscus, in Margarita island, which will now work as hotel-school; as well as the Hotel Yaque Club, also in the island, rescued by the Anti Drug National Office (ONA, Spanish acronym) as matter of confiscation of narcotics.
The rescue works also include the Campamento Canaima, previously property of the Boulton family. To the campsite is being invested 8 million bolivares fuertes in order to show it to the world on the next International Tourism Fair, to be held on October of this year at Ciudad Bolivar, Bolivar state.
'We have also recovered the whole historic quarter of Choroni, Aragua state; the facades of the houses, doors, windows, roofs (...) In La Paragua, Bolivar state, we are building a boulevard of 12 kilometers long, which has been delayed due to the rain, but we will inaugurate it this year with resources that surpass 12 million bolivar fuertes,' she listed.
Regarding the cable cars, Minister Azuaje referred to the already recovered Guaraira Repano -which lowed its prices and eliminated the cashing to the people who climb by foot- besides the cable car which goes from the Hotel Humboldt, in Caracas, up to Macuto, Vargas state, as well as the Merida cable car.
For the cable car in Macuto, which will be ready in 18 months since the works get started, it have already been invested the first resources, approximately 32 thousand euros and around 5 million bolivares fuertes, just for the first stage.
The minister of Mintur stressed that in order to develop the projects, they will work together with the Ministry of People's Power for Infrastructure (Minfra, Spanish acronym).
On the other hand, regarding the cable car in Merida state, she explained that it is a structure that already ended its useful life despite the repairs it has gone through.
'Responsibly, the Government decided to stop it after the technical report issued by one of the most prestigious companies of Europe, which controls more than 400 cable cars,' stressed the Minister.
She commented that after a thorough inspection, it was determined that Merida's cable car presented the same failure in steel cables that caused the accident in 1991, when a wagon prolapsed and two people died, the reason why it was closed during six years.'
'Though it is vacation season, and actually because of it, we closed it. We know that we can bother the vacationists, but safety is priority,' she expressed.
The times and costs of execution are to be defined, as well as the kind of system to be used, depending on the climate, geographical, height and area conditions.
'Today, Merida is a tourist destination par excellence; not only due to the cable car, but also in virtue of the landscape itself, the people, the gastronomy; so the number of tourists should not be lower this time,' Azuaje affirmed.
Traveling is not a luxury anymore
Benefiting the communities through their outstanding students, athletes and culturists, for instance, is one of the lines of work of Mintur, through its ascribed institution Venezolana de Turismo (Venetur).
It deals with Social Tourism, a program subsidized by the State, which offers the possibility to people with limited resources to know different places of Venezuela, as well as islands from Cuba and Dominica, which are visited approximately by 6 thousand and 507 Venezuelans, respectively.
'Around the country, 10 thousand people have enjoyed packages that we maintain active during the whole year, not only in vacations. For instance, we exchange people from Bolivar (state), who come to know the beaches from Miranda state, and vice versa,' the Mintur minister expressed.
She explained that to access to the Social Tourism program is only needed to contact the administration office that keeps an updated census to evaluate, basically, the social economic conditions.
'We cannot benefit everybody at once; the list of people interested on it is huge. Everybody is gradually included, as in the national as in the international package, and even if they do not have a passport we process a provisional for them,' the Minister exhorted.
Simultaneously, she referred to the united works advanced with the private sector, aiming to broaden the tourism possibilities.
'We endorse agreements, we devise associated projects and, however, we sometimes do not meet the demand. That is a proof that we are growing and we will have more response capability every time, because for the Bolivarian Government tourism is a State policy,' she affirmed. |
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| ABN 05:13 pm 27/08/2008 |
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