FEATURE NICARAGUA
"As with many Central American
capitals Managua is not the big draw; most tourists head to Granada, on the shores of Lake Nicaragua, and Leon"
General Information TIME ZONE: -6 hours GMT
VISA: None required for UK citizens; $10 tourist card upon entry
CLIMATE: Tropical with two seasons: a wet season from May to January and a dry season from January to mid-May. Temperatures rarely drop below 20C and can rise as high as 40C.
GETTING THERE: There are no direct flights to Nicaragua. Either fly to any US gateway city – Miami, New York, Houston – and connect to a flight to Managua; or fly to Madrid and connect with flights to San Jose (Costa Rica) or Panama City; from there it’s a short hop to Managua.
Clockwise: Church of San Pedro, Leon; Volcano skiing in northern Nicaragua; Converted Mercado in Managua; San Juan Del Sur
confined to adventure and backpackers due to the poor infrastructure, airlift and the quality of hotels. This has changed in the past few years,
and it’s a good time to be thinking of selling the destination due to improved connections from the UK and Europe as well a number of quality boutique hotels and eco-lodges. It’s also genuinely cheap, much more so
than neighbouring Costa Rica, and offers somewhere significantly different. Nicaragua also makes a perfect twin-
or even triple-centre destination with Costa Rica, where your client is likely to fly into, Honduras or Panama.
What’s New British Airways now code shares with Iberia on flights from Madrid to San Jose (Costa Rica) and Panama City. Costa Rica-based carrier Nature Air,
the world’s first carbon neutral airline, has launched a new flight between San
Jose, the capital of Costa Rica, and Managua (Nicaragua). New national air carrier Air Nicaragua launches this month (June) with flights to Venezuela, Havana and Mexico. A new international airport is being
built on the island of Ometepe, in Lake Nicaragua. This latest project adds to three other new international airports currently under construction in Nicaragua: Bilwi International Airport in Puerto Cabezas (on the North Atlantic coast), Corn Island (off the South Atlantic coast) and San Juan de Nicaragua in the south of the country. There are a number of new hotels (see Room Report below).
Tourism Talk PILAR CANO
CEO. Central America Tourism Agency “Like all other Central
American countries Nicaragua enjoyed
an increase in its number of visitors during 2010: six per cent more than in the previous year. "New tourism products such as the
Water Trail and the introduction of Star Clipper cruises from Costa Rica have undoubtedly contributed to its increased popularity. "We expect this trend to continue
and are confident that the investment in further developments, such as the launch of the new Air Nicaragua airline, will help bring even more visitors to the country in 2011. “It is very important to educate travel
professionals about the many natural and cultural attractions that Nicaragua has to offer. Events like Nicaragua’s FENITUR International Tourism Fair (Managua, May 27-28), and of course the Central America Travel Market (Panama, October 20-21), which attract thousands of international wholesalers, help achieve this."
From the Front Line JONATHAN WHITE
Latin America project leader, Page & Moy “My first impression of
Nicaragua was on the Pan-American highway, at the border of Nicaragua. It’s the type of border that you just don’t see anymore: huge articulated lorries from all different countries, those second-hand Canadian school buses painted in all different colours, piled high with fruit and veg and hundreds of people trying to get through. It was fantastic chaos. “We stayed in Granada, which is
overlooked by volcanoes. We drove up one called Masaya, passing iguanas sunning themselves by the side of the road. It’s still active and smouldering and you can hear these enormous rumblings going on. "The main issue for people thinking of going is the idea of the civil war, but
www.sellinglonghaul.com • June 2011 23
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