Colombia Steps Up With Peru and Others as Caminos Andinos Puts Local Tourism Spending Into Focus

Caminos Andinos now links sixteen tourism routes and forty‑two destinations, across Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru while the Andean Community recorded twelve million non‑resident visitors in 2025. Yet one important B2B tourism question remains unanswered: how much traveller spending really stays with community businesses, artisans, guides, food producers and based operators? Colombia’s new fair-trade tourism programme, Peru’s community-tourism regulation, Ecuador’s active market-data exercise and Bolivia’s benefit-sharing framework show that the four countries are beginning to address different parts of the same economic challenge.

Caminos Andinos Has Built Regional Scale But Local Revenue Capture Is The Next Tourism Test

Caminos Andinos has developed from a regional destination-branding concept into a structured tourism platform covering 16 routes and 42 destinations across Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. The latest regional roadmap was advanced at the first Andean Tourism Forum in Quito on 9 June 2026, where the focus moved towards public-private coordination, competitive tourism products and preparing destinations for international commercialisation. The platform is also available in English, Mandarin Chinese and Arabic.

According to the General Secretariat of the Andean Community, its four members received approximately 12 million non-resident visitors during 2025. About 80% of tourism businesses across the bloc are micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, encompassing operators, guides, accommodation providers, community-tourism entrepreneurs, Indigenous and rural communities, artisans and gastronomy businesses. Tourism contributes an average of about 2.5% of regional GDP and supports around four million jobs.

That business structure makes visitor-spending retention more than a sustainability issue. It is becoming a distribution question for the travel trade. International commercialisation can bring additional demand, but destination-level benefits depend on which suppliers enter itineraries, where bookings are processed, who receives commissions and whether travellers purchase accommodation, food, guiding, transport, crafts and experiences from enterprises rooted in the destination.

Colombia Brings Fair Pricing Into The Tourism Economy Around Bogotá And Caribbean Regions

Colombia provides the clearest current example of why the revenue question is becoming commercially important. Its Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism launched the Destinos Justos programme in July 2026 to strengthen responsible tourism and fair-trade practices across 12 territorial groupings.

According to Colombia’s Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism, the programme reaches entrepreneurs, tourism service providers, community organisations, artisans, traditional cooks and other tourism-value-chain participants. Its territorial coverage includes Bogotá and Cundinamarca, as well as La Guajira and Magdalena, creating significant geographical overlap with parts of Colombia’s Caminos Andinos tourism inventory.

Destinos Justos is separate from Caminos Andinos. The two initiatives should not be presented as one programme. Their significance lies in the overlap between regional tourism commercialisation and Colombia’s domestic attempt to improve commercial conditions for smaller tourism businesses.

Twelve intensive territorial bootcamps are planned, with up to 30 participants per territory over three days and two nights. Training covers fair-trade practices, business association, fair-pricing strategies, commercialisation, territorial marketing and tourism-experience development. Technical assistance for territorial tourism entities follows the training stage, while a national closing event can accommodate up to 250 participants.

Bogotá Gives Caminos Andinos A Major International Gateway

Bogotá is directly incorporated into the official Altiplano Cundiboyacense Caminos Andinos route. The itinerary begins in the Colombian capital before moving through destinations including Zipaquirá, Guatavita, Villa de Leyva, Tunja and Paipa. El Dorado International Airport is identified by the official route platform as its principal aviation gateway.

For tour operators, this means Bogotá can function as more than an arrival city. Packaging travellers onwards into smaller Andean destinations potentially spreads expenditure into accommodation, guiding, gastronomy and cultural services beyond the capital.

Santa Marta Adds A Fresh Infrastructure Dimension

Santa Marta is directly included in the Camino Caribe Colombiano, which links Magdalena, La Guajira and Cesar. Official Caminos Andinos material places Santa Marta alongside attractions and experiences connected with Caribbean gastronomy, Indigenous heritage and locally made Wayúu and Arhuaco handicrafts. The city’s Simón Bolívar International Airport also provides an aviation gateway for the route.

A fresh infrastructure development makes Santa Marta particularly relevant as of 17 September 2026. On 14 September, Colombia’s tourism ministry reported that Fontur would restructure the city’s tourism-pier project from six planned facilities to four more modern jetties before submitting the revised scheme to its governing committee. The ministry specifically linked the work to a tourism value chain involving service providers, entrepreneurs, traders and communities. The project is therefore at a restructuring and approval stage rather than a completed-infrastructure stage.

Bolivia Ecuador And Peru Are Tackling The Same Tourism Value Question Differently

The common thread across the four countries is not simply Andean geography. Caminos Andinos deliberately organises tourism around ancestral heritage, culture, gastronomy, handicrafts, communities and natural landscapes. National policy is increasingly determining how those assets become marketable products and whether communities can participate economically.

Peru has also added a direct financing mechanism. On 15 July 2026, MINCETUR reported 23 eligible initiatives under the 2026 Experiencias en Comunidad stream of Turismo Emprende. Qualifying projects can obtain non-repayable grants of up to S/120,000. Since 2017, the wider programme has financed more than 8,500 initiatives with investment exceeding S/150 million.

Ecuador offers a particularly useful glimpse into the next stage of Caminos Andinos. Its tourism ministry’s current research form asks the market to report only tourism products that are actually operating, including active routes and guides. It requests tourism type, activity, average visitor numbers and country or continent of origin. That should improve understanding of what can genuinely be sold rather than what exists only as promotional inventory.

The country’s Camino de la Cultura Viva del Sur illustrates why that matters. The official route connects Cañar, Azuay and Loja, including Cuenca, while community experiences at Sisid Anejo involve weaving, ancestral ceramics, communal agricultural activity and direct interaction with local families.

Peru provides another distribution-ready example. Its official Camino del Legado Histórico links Lima with Huaraz in Áncash and Ayacucho, combining major gateways with archaeology, mountain landscapes, gastronomy and traditional cultural production.

The Missing Caminos Andinos Metric Is How Much Traveller Money Stays In Each Destination

The most significant information gap is now measurable.

In the official CAN and national-government material reviewed for this report, no harmonised four-country indicator publishes the percentage of Caminos Andinos visitor expenditure retained by locally owned or community-based businesses. Arrival counts, route inventories, employment, MSME participation, community experiences, training programmes and tourism products are increasingly visible. Revenue retention is not.

For the travel trade, that distinction matters. A traveller can visit a rural community without a large proportion of the trip price necessarily remaining there. Revenue may be divided among international distributors, destination-management companies, transport providers, booking intermediaries, accommodation operators and activity suppliers before reaching community enterprises.

A future local-value framework could therefore measure the percentage of itinerary expenditure contracted directly with destination-based suppliers; payments to community-owned accommodation and guides; artisan and gastronomy purchases; distribution commissions; average community supplier payment periods; locally sourced food and transport; and the proportion of total package value leaving the destination.

Such information would give Caminos Andinos something more commercially useful than a sustainability narrative. It could allow agencies, DMCs and travellers to distinguish between itineraries that merely pass through communities and products that generate verifiable local economic participation.

What Travel Agents And Tour Operators Should Do Now

• Map supplier ownership before making community-benefit claims. Identify whether accommodation, guides, workshops and experiences are locally or community operated.
• Use direct contracting where operationally practical. Fewer intermediary layers can make payment flows clearer, although reliability, licensing and consumer protection must remain priorities.
• Record commissions and payment terms. Fair pricing is difficult to assess if the trade cannot identify what proportion of the retail price reaches the supplier.
• Build spending opportunities into itineraries. Local gastronomy, craft workshops, guided cultural experiences and longer dwell times can broaden visitor expenditure beyond transport and accommodation.
• Check live operations rather than promotional listings alone. Ecuador’s current Caminos Andinos research specifically distinguishes active routes, guides and operating products.
• Avoid unsupported sustainability claims. Until consistent revenue-retention reporting exists, operators should describe verified community participation rather than implying that most package revenue automatically stays locally.

Caminos Andinos Could Evolve From Destination Branding Into A Regional Local-Value Model

The next strategic phase of Caminos Andinos is unlikely to be defined solely by adding destinations. The architecture already exists: four countries, 16 routes, 42 destinations, a multilingual digital platform and a regional objective of international commercialisation.

What is developing underneath that structure is more consequential. Colombia is experimenting with fair-pricing and fair-trade capability; Peru has strengthened community-tourism law, market access and finance; Ecuador is gathering live commercial and visitor information; and Bolivia’s tourism framework explicitly connects community participation with equitable benefit distribution.

These approaches are not yet a unified CAN revenue-retention system. That distinction is crucial.

If the four countries eventually harmonise indicators showing how much tourism value remains in destination communities, Caminos Andinos could become more than a multi-country itinerary brand. It could offer the international travel trade a measurable model for connecting regional visitor growth with rural enterprises, gastronomy, handicrafts and ancestral heritage.

Without that measurement, the route network can demonstrate reach but not yet prove economic retention. For agents, operators and destination managers, that is now the most important unresolved tourism question behind the Caminos Andinos expansion.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Caminos Andinos?

Caminos Andinos is an Andean Community tourism initiative connecting Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru as a multidestination proposition. Official CAN information currently identifies 16 tourism routes and 42 destinations, structured around culture, nature, gastronomy, ancestral heritage and other shared tourism assets.

Why are Bogotá and Santa Marta important to this story?

Bogotá is the starting point and main aviation gateway for Colombia’s Altiplano Cundiboyacense route. Santa Marta is directly included in the Camino Caribe Colombiano and has a fresh tourism-infrastructure programme under restructuring as of 14 September 2026.

Does Caminos Andinos prove that most tourism revenue stays with communities?

No. The official regional and national material reviewed for this report demonstrates community participation and multiple policies aimed at strengthening local tourism enterprises, but it does not provide a harmonised Caminos Andinos figure showing what percentage of traveller expenditure remains with communities or locally owned suppliers.

What connects Bolivia Colombia Ecuador and Peru from a tourism perspective?

Their strongest commonality is their shared Andean cultural and natural heritage, alongside Indigenous and rural communities, traditional gastronomy, artisanal production, archaeological heritage and community-oriented tourism products. Caminos Andinos packages those complementary assets into a regional tourism proposition.

What does this development mean for the B2B travel sector?

It creates more inventory for multi-destination South American itineraries while increasing the need for supplier due diligence. Agencies and tour operators can now combine major gateways with smaller destinations, but credible community-tourism positioning will increasingly depend on proving who supplies the experience, how they are paid and how much economic value remains within the destination.