Honduran Tourism Minister Launches Blistering Ad Campaign Against...Honduras?
Normally when you see negative travel advertising about a city or state, it's one locale trying to play itself up as an alternative to another and occasionally you run into a campaign that's more or less being done to punish a place. An example of this is food companies' punitive response to New York's ongoing war against smoking/alcohol/transfats/fun, but it's very unusual to have a campaign that's just pure "don't go to this place" spite. What's been happening in Honduras, where the exiled Tourism Minister is screening negative ads about his own country, is indeed very unusual.
The politics down in Honduras are obviously a mess. Manuel Zelaya was ousted from the presidency with various degrees of legitimacy and justification, the answer to that varying with where you fall on the political spectrum. The US government, along with Honduras' neighbors, insist it was a coup. The Honduran Supreme Court, legislature, and army mostly beg to disagree. None of that matters for our purposes. Instead we enter the story where Ricardo Martinez, Zelaya's former Tourism minister, is invited to act as the country's legitimate representative at the Central American Travel Market.
He was, all things considered, not the best imaginable spokesman for the Honduran tourism industry...
Ricardo Martínez, presented a video at a recent convention in neighboring El Salvador. With a sound track of revolutionary music, it showed supporters of ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya clashing with riot police in the streets of the capital, Tegucigalpa... 'I'd like to tell everyone to come to Honduras and that it's a tranquil place and everything is beautiful, but you think I'd be successful with that message?' he says. 'Of course not.'
Honduras relies on tourism for the bulk of its economy, and since Zelaya's ouster they've seen that industry plummet. Martínez obviously didn't help anything, and the country is going to have to act fast if it wants to recover. If you need us, we'll be out back weighing our political sensibilities versus our desire to score sweet vacation packages to Central America.
[Photo: Dennis Garcia / Wiki Commons]
Related Stories:
· Honduras' Tourism Minister: 'Don't Visit My Country!' [TIME]
· Honduras Travel Coverage [Jaunted]
· Travel Advertising [Jaunted]
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