Managua, May 12 (EFE).- Nicaragua hopes to lure European tourists with tours of active and inactive volcanoes, nature preserves, pristine forests, archaeological sites and colonial cities, as well as the chance to see wild birds or whales.

Sustainable tourism, deemed the best fit for a country with unexplored regions and the lowest crime rate in Central America, has given Nicaraguan officials and a European Union delegation a theme to attract Europeans.

“Nicaragua has a variety of tourist attractions,” Thierry Lippert, charge d’affaires at Luxembourg’s embassy in Nicaragua, told Efe.

Lippert and the EU office in Managua recently organized a Euroforum on sustainable tourism in the Central American country.

“Nicaragua doesn’t have the best volcanoes, but it has good volcanoes. It doesn’t have the best beaches, but it does have good beaches. It doesn’t have the best rivers, but it does have good rivers,” Lippert said.

Another of “Nicaragua’s great attractions,” the diplomat said, is that visitors can tour volcanoes, coffee plantations and natural reserves “in just one week.”

Public safety is yet another of Nicaragua’s assets, especially since its northern neighbors – Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador – have some of the highest homicide rates in the world.

To put Nicaragua on tourism maps, representatives of 10 travel agencies from Germany, Spain, France, the Netherlands and Poland are visiting sustainable tourism destinations across the country this week, Inmanuel Zerger, a German who is president of the Central American country’s Solentiname Tour company, said.

The group is to take the colonial and international volcanic route tour, spanning from Guatemala to Panama and offering adventure, an introduction to the countryside and culture in Nicaragua.

Some 7 percent of the 1.32 million foreign tourists who visited Nicaragua last year were Europeans, and the goal is to increase the flow gradually, Nicaraguan National Tourism Association president Sylvia de Levy said.

Foreign tourism generated some $445.4 million in revenues for Nicaragua last year, or 6.8 percent more than in 2013, the Nicaraguan Tourism Institute, or Intur, said.

Nicaragua expects to generate about $450 million in revenues from an estimated 1.35 million foreign visitors this year. EFE