ANITA SNOW
  Associated Press

  HAVANA - Betting on tourism to pull Cuba out of its economic slump, President Fidel Castro presided over the opening of the island's largest resort, a
  sprawling complex of 944 rooms on the northeastern coast where Christopher Columbus landed in 1492.

  Tourists wearing T-shirts and shorts joined hundreds of the socialist nation's political elite in business suits and elegant dresses in celebrating Tuesday's
  opening of Hotel Playa Pesquero in the eastern province of Holguin.

  Castro, wearing his typical olive green military uniform, touted the amenities of the new resort during the inauguration, which was broadcast across the
  nation on state television.

  The Cuban leader's presence, and the broadcast, showed the enormous importance the government places on this new project in particular and tourism in
  general. Hotels in Holguin draw visitors primarily from Canada, Germany, Britain, Italy, France and Switzerland.

  "Our friends from the north are not in this list," Castro said with a grin, referring to Americans who are restricted by U.S. Treasury Department regulations
  from traveling to the island.

  The day that Americans are allowed freely to travel to Cuba "we will practically have to move from the country, that day their constitutional right to travel is
  respected," Castro joked.

  The $100 million complex was completed in 22 months using Cuban capital and construction workers with technical assistance by the French firm Bouygues,
  Castro said. It will be managed by Gaviota S.A., one of the Cuban government's numerous tour operators.

  The number of visitors to the island jumped 33 percent in January compared with the same month in 2002, giving officials hope that tourism is recovering
  from the drop in international travel after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

  Tourism Minister Ibrahim Ferradaz was quoted in the business newspaper Opciones as saying that the number of visitors had been slowly increasing since
  October.

  Cuba suffered a 5 percent drop in visitors last year, a significant percentage for a country that counts on tourism as its No. 1 source of foreign income.

  Unlike some other Caribbean countries, Cuba did not lower prices or put together travel packages to lure visitors during the slump, preferring to focus on
  cutting operational costs, Ferradaz was quoted as saying.

  "No country is more prepared than ours to make changes and keep advancing," he said.

  Cuba, the largest island in the Caribbean, has about 40,000 hotel rooms, many built during the 1990s. The socialist government began developing tourism
  to diversify its economy after losing its most important trade partner, the Soviet Union.

  For several years, tourism grew as much as 18 percent annually.