Cruise stop for Cartagena.

• Author: Luxner, Larry
• Position: Visiting Cartagena, Colombia - Iojo!

During most of its 465-year history, the ancient walled city of Cartagena has had to put up with Spanish oppression, pirates, civil war, hurricanes, and disease. These days, Cartagena's biggest headaches--especially for the city's hoteliers--have more to do with overcoming Colombia's unfortunate reputation for violence.

"We're aware that Colombia's image problem is tarnishing our ability to attract tourists from the United States," says Luis Fernando Canizares, president of the local chapter of Cotelco, the Colombian Hotel Association. "It is very important to tell Americans that Colombia is not a city. It's a huge country. These incidents are happening very far from Cartagena." Nevertheless, he says, hotel occupancy--which had been running at 7080 percent--has dropped to 50-55 percent.

Roberto Lemattre, director of Cartagena's Pro-Turismo organization, says, "We're: conscious of certain factors that can help us bring visitors to Cartagena. Mainly we're thinking of Latin Americans or people with Latin roots in South Florida. We don't have the resources to target all of the United States. That would take millions and millions of dollars, and we don't have the resources right now."

To get around that, Cartagena has adopted a strategy for marketing the ancient city as a Caribbean cruise-ship destination. Beginning last April, area hotels have begun charging a "voluntary" 80-cent-a-night room tax. That, along with contributions from major airlines, will help fund a US$1 million media promotional campaign aimed at luring U.S. visitors to this port city, famous for its Spanish colonial architecture, nightlife, and palm-fringed beaches.

In 1995 around half a million foreign visitors came to Cartagena, 40 percent of them from Western Europe. Beyond that, accurate statistics are hard to come by. Canizares says Cartagena has 8,000 hotel rooms, of which 4,300 are in four- and five-star properties.

The brand-new 250-room Hotel Inter-Continental Cartagena, inaugurated earlier this year, is owned by Inversiones Sedecio S.A. It is currently running 40 percent occupancy. About 75 percent of its guests are Colombians; the remainder are other Latin Americans, Europeans, Canadians, and Americans--in that order.

"We don't see too many Americans here," says Jean-Pierre Etcheberrigaray, general manager of the $45 million property. "This is going to change when we become a cruise-ship hub...