Wednesday, June 20, 2018
In spite of the sheer diversity of its natural landscape – including everything from deserts, tundra and rainforests to natural wonders including the highest mountain in the world after the Himalayas, the planet’s widest river, and one of the world’s largest waterfalls, not to mention culture, gastronomy and nine UNESCO World Heritage Sites, Argentina receives around 5.7 million tourists per year, as per the UNWTO.
Compared to Greece, a nation of 11 million, welcoming annually 27 million visitors, this figure is extremely low for Argentina, which is home to over 40 million people and the eighth-largest country in the world.
However, this appears to be changing. As of late, Argentina tourism officials and for the first time, the government is depending on tourism. Indicative of this decision, Buenos Aires hosted the 18th annual WTTC Global Summit in April, while the country’s tourism ministry is aiming for 9 million foreign tourists generating 8,000 million dollars in revenue, 300,000 jobs and 70 million domestic tourists spending 170,000 million dollars by 2020.
The General Manager of the Argentine Chamber of Tourism (CAT), Eleonora Boano, spoke about the plans to reach out to new markets, make Argentina accessible, and promote the vast range of its products in a more targeted manner.
Once one of the wealthiest countries in the world, Argentina fell into severe recession in 1998-2002 and was forced like Greece to seek financial assistance in the form of bailout programs.
“The priorities now are bringing in travelers from new and strong markets such as China, the US and Canada… this requires direct flights from these regions,” Boano said.
“One of the major challenges for Argentina tourism is accessibility,” said Boano. “And this is thankfully changing with the addition of new direct flights, while low cost carriers (LCCs) are also beginning to handle the region,” she said, and added that in view of this development, upgrade works are already underway on the country’s airports.
Tags: argentina
