HAVANA, Cuba.- In recognition of its history, elegance and documents it treasures, the Cuban National Hotel was included in the National Memory of the World register, a UNESCO program aiming at safeguarding documentary heritage of humanity.

The National Hotel is the first institution of its type included in the program and it was nominated to be added to the regional register along with other six valuable documentary collections. The announcement was made during a ceremony at the Vedado Hall of the hotel.

UNESCO established the Memory of the World program in 1992 to facilitate the preservation and promotion of documentary heritage. Archive holdings can be part of national, regional and world registers.

Present in the ceremony were important personalities of the Cuban culture among them the president of the New Latin American Film Festival, Alfredo Guevara, and members of the National Association of Writers and Artists.

Some other document archives included in the world register are the Jose Marti collection, documentary collections “Vida y Obra de Ernesto Che Guevara” (Life and Work of Ernesto Che Guevara) and “En Canoa del Amazonas al Caribe” (In Canoa from the Amazons to the Caribbean), an expedition carried out in 1987 led by a Cuban speleologist following the route of pre-historic tribes from the Amazonian basins to mark their discovery of this geographic area.