Experience heritage with San Cristóbal Travel Agency

By Daily Pérez Guillén

The San Cristóbal Travel Agency, which specializes in tourism in Cuba’s heritage cities, bids farewell to 2024 with novelties: it has a new website and is organizing the event “Leales al Patrimonio” (Loyal to Heritage) to be held in November next year.

“You have to seek out initiatives, you have to create,” emphasized Antonio Guerrero, director of the agency, in an exchange with TTC regarding these announcements. “Creativity, the promotion of products, the quality of these products, not only visually, but also through our guides, through all those involved, that is what we at San Cristóbal are committed to working on.”

At the Visitors’ Center located the Historic District, the agency’s executives presented the official web page: www.viajessancristobal.com; to tour operators, hotel chains, incoming travel agencies and the specialized press.

The platform, developed by the Guajiritos SRL company, presents a modern and simple approach that facilitates user interaction. An intuitive interface guarantees fast navigation. Travel agencies, tour operators or individual clients can search San Cristóbal’s portfolio of products in real time, including guided visits to the National Capitol, the Casa Leal Route, Martí’s Havana and the accessible tourism excursions, which include programs for people with mobility, vision, hearing and cognitive requirements, distinguished by the names “Camino Leal” and “La Cuna de la Ciudad” (The Cradle of the City).

It is also possible to book the Colonial, Sacred Heritage and Popular Religiosity, Art and Color, Heritage Rehabilitation and Social Work, Fortress and Key to the New World and The Whole City themed tours, among others.

Accommodation can be booked in different hotel chains through the website, with immediate confirmation. The site offers information about the Agency, reviews of Cuba’s Heritage Cities, tourism-related news and links to other sites in the sector.

Meanwhile, Iliana Artigas, vice president of the agency, informed that the international historical heritage tourism event “Loyal to Heritage” is scheduled to take place from November 12 to 17, 2025, to coincide with the celebrations to mark the 506th anniversary of the founding of the Villa de San Cristóbal de La Habana.

The name that distinguishes the event pays tribute to the late Historian of Havana, Dr. Eusebio Leal Spengler, precursor of all the work of the Agency and to whom it owes its raison d’être.

Three Cuban cities will host this first edition. Havana will deal with colonial architecture, since it is one of the three provinces in the country with the largest number of buildings declared National Monuments. In 1982, its Historic Center, together with its system of fortifications, was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In 2016, it also formally received the title of Wonder City of the modern world.

In Matanzas, the focus will be on popular religiosity and traditions.  The intangible cultural heritage of that area of the archipelago also includes numerous attractive artistic expressions related to the oral tradition of rites, legends and popular stories, theater, literature, traditional popular music and concerts, dances and popular festivities, among others.

Participants will also have the opportunity to take the tour “The Slave Route,” which has one of its most outstanding stops at the Castle of San Severino and the Alley of Traditions, a socio-cultural project located in the limits of the historic center of the city. Home to numerous temples, in which the most important foundations of the magical-religious expressions that arrived from Africa are kept alive, today represented in popular art practices of the

In the center of the island, the Villa de Trinidad will host those interested in topics associated with the conservation of tangible and intangible heritage.

Trinidad has the most complete and best preserved historic center in Latin America. In 1978, it was declared a National Monument and ten years later it was inscribed on the World Heritage List, in recognition of the conservation work carried out over the years. This UNESCO declaration also included the Valle de los Ingenios.

Trinidad’s urban image is complemented by the vast presence of manifestations of popular art and local traditions, such as embroidery and needlework, ceramics, wood and vegetable fiber handicrafts, visual arts, song, dance and theater, which make it a regional reference for the preservation of its intangible heritage. On the occasion of World Cities Day, October 31, 2019, UNESCO also awarded Trinidad the title of Creative City of the World.

Those interested can find more information about this event on the San Cristóbal website.

“This living heritage that we have, the people who visit us and take it with them can convey to others the value of visiting Cuba and that it is not only something for show, but beyond that, the work has to be explained as well. Where does it come from? The work of the historical center has the peculiarity that it is integrated with social work. This is very important. And that San Cristóbal has this social work within its products combined with history,” reflected Guerrero following the presentation of these novelties from the San Cristóbal Travel Agency.

“These new things that are made with great quality, that are presented on social media, are what we are committed to; that San Cristóbal is not seen as a national agency, but as one more face of the country,” he concluded.