In the midst of the worst fuel crisis remembered on the Island, the Cuban regime organized a "safari" with a caravan of off-road vehicles for the attendees of the TURNAT 2024 event.
The travel agency Ecotur S.A, organizer of the event, advertised on its social media a route from Marea del Portillo to Santiago de Cuba, where participants traveled through spectacular untouched landscapes of the eastern geography aboard a caravan of off-road vehicles belonging to this company.
Attached to the Ministry of Tourism of Cuba (MINTUR), the agency specializes in nature, adventure, and rural tourism on the Island, as well as organizing events to promote exclusive tourism offers for groups of visitors, such as itineraries through ecologically significant areas or routes for VIP groups through unique landscapes of the island's geography.
The 14th Edition of the International Nature Tourism Event (TURNAT 2024), which began on September 24 and concludes this Sunday in Baracoa, has chosen the provinces of Granma, Santiago de Cuba, and Guantánamo to promote Cuba as a unique destination for rural tourism.
According to the organizers, "the event demonstrates the strength and opportunity that Cuba has to develop Nature, Adventure, and Rural Tourism, as well as to motivate and encourage providers to design recreational, educational, and environmental culture products, using heritage, cultural, and natural values from a sustainability perspective with the environment."
Beyond this, the truth is that while the country is experiencing an unprecedented energy crisis, the Cuban regime continues to waste resources promoting its tourist interests, increasingly with less success and more rejection from the population.
This year, attendees at the TURNAT 2024 event paid $1,636 per person (single room) or $1,581 per person (double room) for a five-night package that included various activities such as hiking, diving, or photographic safaris.
Precisely, this last group of activities caught the attention of Cuban internet users who focused on the regime's wastefulness in promoting the Island as a tourist destination to "tour operators, travel agencies, promoters, and opinion leaders who know, love, promote, and manage nature tourism."
Among the images that generated the most comments on social media were those of caravans of all-terrain vehicles traveling through remote areas of Cuban geography forbidden to national tourism, with idyllic and pristine places "with a high degree of biological diversity, well-preserved and with high aesthetic-landscape values."
The vehicles, from the Chinese manufacturer Dongfeng and painted olive green, were seen parked in a long line in the city of Guantánamo, in front of the Martí Hotel in that city.
Photographs shared on social media showed the spectacular route offered by the agency Ecotur S.A to participants through natural areas that are difficult to access along the southern coast bordering the provinces of Granma and Santiago de Cuba.
In statements to Trabajadores, the director of the travel agency Ecotur, Raúl Naranjo, explained that this event is the most important for tourism, nature, adventure, and rural experiences taking place in Cuba.
Each of the sites included in TURNAT 2024 was chosen by the National Commission of Nature Tourism, with the collaboration of the ministries of Tourism, Culture, and Science, Technology, and Environment, the Company of Flora and Fauna, and the National Council of Cultural Heritage, among other institutions.
"We are moving forward with good steps, aimed at showcasing the potential of the Island, learning to place all the cultural, historical, and natural treasures in their rightful place," expressed Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz during the TURNAT 2022 event, where he also lamented that the Caribbean island is only promoted as a sun and beach destination, despite having other attractions such as health, sports, and gastronomy.
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