Another Hollywood production is coming to Puerto Rico.

The new John Travolta-led film, Speed Kills, will be filming on the island, according to Governor Ricardo Rossello.

Speed Kills is the story of Don Aronow, a designer, runner and manufacturer of high-speed cigarette boats that who had an immeasurable influence on nautical design.

“The Puerto Rican film industry, its human talent, its technicians, production staff and all its members have demonstrated their commitment, professionalism and dedication in recent years,” Rossello said. “Thanks to them, film production has unquestionably become one of the main engines with the most potential for economic development in Puerto Rico. As a result of all this effort, today I am pleased to announce the start of production on Speed Kills Island, starring Oscar nominee John Travolta.”

The film, directed by John Luessenhop, will have a budget of around $22 million and will create 633 direct jobs on the island with a Puerto Rican co-production.

“We want highly-trained Puerto Rican entrepreneurs to collaborate with this multi-million dollar production. We are confident that the development and success of these will create the confidence to reinvest in the film industry itself,” the governor said. “In addition, being part of the United States undoubtedly positions us to have the confidence of Hollywood and international productions.”

Puerto Rico has become the Caribbean’s largest film and television production hubs in recent years, attracting production from TV series like NBC’s Crossbones and Homeland and films like the Ben Affleck-led Runner Runner.

“We have taken affirmative steps to make Puerto Rico an investment destination for the film industry. With the Destination Marketing Organization (DMO), Enterprise Puerto Rico, an interactive asset map, and an incentive code that promotes productivity, value added is created for these incentives to have a return on investment For the People of Puerto Rico and generate good jobs in a sustainable way,” said Manuel Laboy, Secretary of Economic Development and Commerce..

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Tourism arrivals are showing steady growth in Belize for the first quarter of 2017 after a very strong 2016, according to the latest numbers from the country’s tourist board.

The overnight tourism sector continued on a positive trajectory in 2017, with increases in each of the first three months of the year, leading to an overall 2.7 percent at the end of March 2017.

The month of March is traditionally the height of the island’s tourism season.

In March of 2016, there was a record number of tourist arrivals totaling over 43,000 visitors.

However, this record was surpassed in March 2017, with over 44,400 tourist visitors, making it the highest number of tourist arrivals ever recorded in a single month.

An overall increase of 8.7 percent in cruise passenger arrivals was recorded for the first three months of 2017.

With an increase of 24.2 percent and 22.7 percent in January and February 2017 respectively, along with a short decline of 13.1 percent in March 2017, the total number of cruise ship passengers registered in the first quarter of 2017 surpassed that of 2016.

— Dana Niland, CJ Contributor

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International Airlines Group’s new low-cost carrier is off to a strong start.

The new airline, LEVEL, has already reported more than 100,000 tickets sold since launching on March 17, the company said.

The low-cost brand has kicked off operations with low fares on flights from Barcelona to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Buenos Aires and the Caribbean destination of Punta Cana, with more than 60 percent of customers booking on mobile devices.

The company also announced that customers traveling to Punta Cana could now book everything-included holidays including flights, hotels and car hire through the airline.

“Selling more than 100,000 tickets in such a short period with a new brand is incredible,” said IAG chief executive, Willie Walsh. “The response has been fantastic in all markets. We´re enabling many people to fly longhaul for the first time and stimulating demand by providing them with more choice.”

Walsh said the plan was to have more aircraft beginning in the summer of 2018, with more destinations from Barcelona and an expansion of operations to other European cities.

The first LEVEL flight to Punta Cana will take off June 10.

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Canadian travel giant Sunwing is adding more flights from Canada to the Caribbean this summer.

The carrier will be offering service to three Caribbean destinations from Vancouver via Toronto.

From May 17 to Sept. 3, Vancouver travelers can reach Punta Cana, Montego Bay and St. Maarten.

From June 1 through Sept. 1, connections to Punta Cana will be available on Thursdays and Sundays, while Montego Bay can be reached weekly on Saturdays from June 3 through Sept. 3.

Those heading to St. Maarten can fly Wednesdays between May 17 and Aug. 31.

Sunwing is the largest vertically integrated travel company in North America.

— Caribbean Journal Staff

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MARTINIQUE — It’s a rainy afternoon on the outskirts of Fort de France. We drive up a road through the waving green of cane fields and enter a dimly-lit distillery, vibrant with the clang of steam-powered machinery, raw and primal.

This is La Favorite, the venerable rum house just outside Martinique’s capital where some of the island’s most beloved rhum agricole is made.

There is no flash about the place, just good, honest rummaking,

But if you make your way to the far back corner of the warehouse you will find a tiny boutique filled with gold. Black gold.

Here at La Favorite’s tasting room and shop is one of the few places on earth where you can find a very special rum: Privilege de La Favorite.

While we’ve extolled the wonders of the single-vintage La Flibuste, an annual-release rum boasting 30 years of aging in oak barrels, the Privilege is the next level up.

Inside this dark green bottle designed to look even older than it is, sealed with wax, is a blend of rums of between 30 and 35 years of age, making for one of the world’s greatest rum blends.

There are just 2,500 bottles of this produced every year, and it is, in a word, out of this world.

More than three decades of waiting in oak barrels in the humid tropical heat of Martinique have given the rum a dark brown color to the point of nearly being black.

The aroma is sweet and robust, with notes of caramel, milk chocolate, molasses and licorice.

The flavor profile is marked by caramel, cocoa powder, sugarcane juice, coffee, vanilla and even a hint of chocolate syrup, at once earthy and sweet.

There is a perfection about this rum, the sense that you truly can taste what time has done to a decades-old rum.

Even better still, you can still taste the simple, pure La Favorite rum at its core, calling to you from the past, reminding what this rum was like at its origins.

It’s an effect that takes you simultaenously to two points in time, now and three decades before, fusing into one unforgettable experience.

This is a legendary rum, the kind of rum that one must make the trip to this place to obtain.

But those who journey here will be rewarded.

— Alexander Britell

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