8
TOURISM TODAY
Academic Trek
The hotel is located in front of the Castle of San Felipe, a couple of minutes from the Old City of Cartagena (Colombia). It offers a service of accommodation and restaurant, swimming pool and a great view towards the city. The special concept of this hotel is that it has an art gallery and an auditorium for cultural shows.
The idea of the creation of this hotel emerged in 2005, primarily to make a real estate project different to the ordinary. To go beyond a mere shopping center, building, apartment or office, the entrepreneur and musician Henry Char envisioned a project that had a musical component. Based on this, it comes the idea of creating a shopping mall with an auditorium where the performance of cultural acts where integrated to the hotel in order to make them both more profitable. At the same time, the construction of a gallery would put that goodwill needed in any ambitious project.
Moreover, he conceived the use of fine arts, culture and architecture as a sensitive way to impact an abandoned and poor sector, with many local sinks of cars and sale of mufflers that do not have an enjoyable image for both tourists and natives that visit the beautiful Castle of San Felipe.
In addition to attract the audience, the local artists also have the opportunity to make themselves known, not only to expose his paintings in the gallery, but also exhibit some of their samples in the corridors of the hotel.
The gallery has a professional team in charge of the exhibition, where they held a cocktail in each presentation and the curator has the responsibility to take care of the samples.
In conclusion, we can say that thanks to hotel concept, many well-known and not so well-known artists have the opportunity to showcase their work, and, in addition, these events contribute to strengthen the cultural tourism of a city that can be considered a piece of art by itself.
By Jahainy Zuleta Tovar, IX semester
Visit to San Lazaro Art Lifestyle Hotel