By Timothy S. Donahue

Top Takeaways:

• New Partnership: InterTabac will support La Gran Cata, a premium cigar festival debuting in Honduras in January.
• Industry Showcase: The five-day event will feature factory tours, tobacco plantations, and 11 participating cigar companies.
• International Connections: The partnership links Honduras’s cigar producers with InterTabac’s European industry network.

InterTabac is extending its cigar connections beyond Dortmund into Honduras’s tobacco fields.

On November 13, the German trade show announced that it has become an official partner of La Gran Cata, a new premium cigar festival scheduled for January 23–27, 2027, in Tegucigalpa and Danlí, Honduras.

Organized by the Consejo de Artesanos del Tabaco de Honduras (CATAH), the five-day event will bring together cigar manufacturers, retailers, industry professionals and enthusiasts for factory visits, plantation tours, tastings and demonstrations of traditional cigar-making.

The partnership is part of InterTabac’s effort to expand its international cigar network beyond its annual trade show in Dortmund. It follows the inaugural Cigar Culture Summit Africa in Johannesburg, an initiative Messe Dortmund also supported.

La Gran Cata, promoted as The Honduran Premium Cigar Experience, will begin in Tegucigalpa and then move to Danlí, the country’s principal tobacco-growing and cigar-manufacturing region.

The program includes a presidential dinner, factory tours, visits to tobacco plantations, and cultural activities that showcase Honduras’s cigar-making heritage. Organizers expect about 150 participants at the inaugural event.

Eleven cigar companies are participating, including CLE Cigar Co., Gran Habano, JRE Tobacco, Maya Selva, My Father Cigars, Oliva, Oscar Valladares, Plasencia, Raíces Cubanas, Rocky Patel, and Scandinavian Tobacco Group.

InterTabac joins the Premium Cigar Association (PCA), which announced a partnership with La Gran Cata on October 27. The PCA said the festival will let specialty tobacco retailers experience Honduran cigar production firsthand, from tobacco cultivation to finished products.

Honduras produces more than 250 cigar brands, organizers said. In 2016, the country’s National Congress recognized traditional cigar-making as part of Honduras’s intangible cultural heritage.

The industry also maintains strong commercial ties with Europe.

According to World Integrated Trade Solution data cited by Messe Dortmund, Honduras ranked among the European Union’s top five suppliers of cigars and cigarillos in 2024. Germany was its largest European buyer and the second-largest individual export market worldwide after the United States.

The new partnership gives InterTabac a direct connection to Honduran manufacturers and gives producers another way to engage with European retailers, distributors, and industry representatives.

Registration for La Gran Cata is now open, with a five-day package priced at $2,500 per person and covering accommodations, transportation, meals, and festival activities. Single-day passes are also available for select activities in Danlí.

The festival’s schedule also allows participants to travel to neighboring Nicaragua for the annual Puro Sabor cigar festival, which runs January 25–30.

For InterTabac, the partnership expands its growing international presence in cigars. For Honduras, it brings another major industry organization to an event designed to put the country’s premium cigar production in the international spotlight.