• Submitted by: manso
• Editorial Articles
• 09 / 27 / 2011

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VILLA CLARA, Cuba, Sept 26 (acn) Turnat 2011, The Eighth International Meeting on Nature Tourism began this Monday, at the Hanabanilla Hotel, in Manicaragua, in the central province of Villa Clara, which has many natural and cultural attractions and shows high levels of diversity.This event takes places a few days from reaching the two million foreign visitors, achieved on September 17, for the eighth time, 32 days before schedule regarding last year. 

A few days ago the event reached a record figure of more than 230 participants, which continues increasing with the attendance of more foreign visitors interested in taking part in the meeting. 

According to a communiqué by the Cuban Ministry of Tourism (MINTUR), Turnat 2011 would welcome travel agents, tour operators, consultants, and journalists from Canada, the United States, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Ecuador, and Panama; and in the last few hours they received visitors from the Dominican Republic as well. 

Through Friday, the participants will exchange experiences with Cuban colleagues, tourism workers, and with inhabitants of far away places from the central provinces, who will show them the gifts and potential of that Cuban region. 

They will tour around the Hanabanilla, a protected natural landscape valuable for its flora and fauna and its important hydrographic basins; and El Nicho, in Cienfuegos, one of the most attractive places in the Guamuhaya mountain range. 

The participants will also visit Topes de Collantes and the biosphere reserve Caguanes National Park, both of them in Sancti Spiritus province. 

According to MINTUR, Canada is the main market emitting tourists to Cuba worldwide; whereas the United Kingdom is the most important in Europe, followed by Italy, Spain, France, Germany,and Russia, while Mexico and Argentina stand out in the Americas.