THE ROAD TO RECOVERY

The closure of bars, restaurants, terraces, social gathering centers and gastronomic enjoyment, the concern and uncertainty that led to the expansion of the new coronavirus and the need to keep alive a tradition of accompanying the sector, put Excelencias Gourmet in front of a new challenge. Our main contribution had to be to continue communicating, to keep up our dissemination pace and to guarantee that our contents would keep up with the sector and its new needs. In times of paralysis, we don't stop ourselves. Without having stopped working for a single day, either from home or from the office, we set about deploying an entire communication strategy that would allow us to be closer to our people. An issue with a great deal of information on health, trends and possible palliatives in the face of the reality that we were experiencing preceded the initiative of Verónica de Santiago, who from Madrid conceived the #SeminarioExcelenciasEnCasa, a cycle of 27 digital presentations that from April 1 to 12 included the participation of chefs, academics, professionals in the room, historians, consultants, sommeliers, social network experts, communicators, technological innovators, journalists, mixologists, and entrepreneurs, who, from Brazil, Spain, Guatemala, Mexico, Dominican Republic and Venezuela, agreed to share their knowledge and perspectives. Very aware of our collaborators and the work of the various Latin American Academies, large and medium businesses, the food that had to be prepared at home, new trends and possible actions that would allow the gradual recovery of the hotel industry, were published - on our website and social networks- news, interviews and facilitation articles that were rounded off with the #CNDEscucha, another multimedia initiative that we organized, and that from tourism addressed several issues related to the world of gastronomy and new circumstances. We kept our readers informed. We sent them all links to our publications through various email marketing which also reminded them of the possibility of accessing our applications for free, the most important of which is the application Cocteles Habana, which is an excellent guide on how to prepare a cocktail and what its history is, as a way of alleviating these long days at home. We also update the guides published by the Excelencias Group. We wanted to have all the essential information so that once back to normal, those who decide to go to Cuba can find, in Spanish, English and Russian, from the most varied restaurants and gastronomic services, to those places that arouse great interest. Today we present another issue in which the sustainable and the healthy have again the leading role. In this way, very much in line with the celebration of the Sustainable Gastronomy Day that took place on 18 June, by the hand of the master Rafael Ansón, president of the Ibero-American Academy of Gastronomy, the importance of this sustainability in the current context is reaching us. Also, concerned about the revival of business associated with the environment, we managed a text from Eva Ballarín, a consultant in research and analysis of trends, innovation and strategy, where those who want to bet on a new mode will have the pros and cons, the strengths and weaknesses of a variety of proposals hopeful. We still have a long way to go. Security, as another of those indispensable S's in the new conception of gastronomy, will have a preponderant role in each of our publications. The new standards that will have to be met by employees and customers will change preconceptions in many ways, new consumer attitudes and the need for recovery will require the sector to make great efforts. On the road to recovery, Excelencias Gourmet must accompany every process, every action that denotes a new step towards total resilience. It is not less certain that once left behind the crisis by the COVID, others are coming, but this will be a new challenge, and we will overcome this and prevail.