Since coming into being fifteen years ago in July 1997, Excelencias Turisticas set sight on a mission and a goal: to be a magazine for the promotion and support of multidestination, ethnic and cultural tourism, both among the nations of Latin America and the Caribbean, and the outbound markets that target these regions. In this timespan, the birth of ALBA in 2004 shed light on a different and proud vision that was born out of a necessity, out of a need to understand society and its interrelation among all peoples, a proposal that’s paving the way for a born-again cultural, social and economic approach among member countries. 

Tourism is meant to be one of the roads leading to the knowledge of cultures and neighboring nations that have been separated –and still are- due to a lack of airlift that continues to hamper the rapprochement. A new and promising daybreak will dawn on the region as soon as its economic powers start building air bridges among themselves, a move encouraged by the alliance between LAN and TAM, the resurgence of Conviasa in Venezuela and the creation in the near future of an airline to bind them all together, with the absolute determination of being the air company of ALBA, a common market with special features of its own that calls for the social benefit of the peoples and the recovery of the Bolivarian trace.

No wonder Venezuela’s Transportation Minister Elsa Gutierrez has said an airline with these characteristics should not only be profitable from a quantitative standpoint, but more importantly from a social and qualitative stance. This definitely makes a difference in which gains do not depend solely on the money count. That’s why Venezuela is implementing a social-oriented tourism that gives its unlikely traveling citizens, those who hadn’t seen the cultures and the regions of their own country, the possibility to sally forth inside the nation and share views with their fellow Venezuelans. These policies are also contained in the nation’s agreements with other countries and islands of the Americas, thus opening a window of opportunity to travel under well-outlined programs at affordable prices. The end result is the exchange of cultures, the management of health tourism and programmed trips. 

Thanks to the agreements inked among the ALBA member states, thousands of people have received medical treatment in Cuba and, at the same time have enjoyed the charms of a travel destination that welcomes people in need of medical services. This is just an example of how much ALBA can contribute to the travel industry and to the encounter of peoples within the region.