Latin America is endowed with enormous tourist destinations. The topography of the continent makes it an ideal location for all who want to enjoy nature at first hand. But the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic reduced the number of people who visit the continent mainly for tourism for years.
The advent of the virus also reduced the amount of foreign exchange these individual countries in Latin America get drastically. Lockdowns had to be affected workers laid-off and tourist destinations closed up. This brought a hefty economic recession to those tourist companies and the people that live there.
After two year of uncertainties and a near closure of all tourist destinations, tourism in Latin America is beginning to see a boom in sales and patronage. The number of visitors has doubled to the extent which it can be compared with the pre-pandemic period. The GDP growth of countries in Latin America is now 48.2% for just 2021.
The tourism industry has also registered a rise in both outbound and inbound patronage. The world Travel and Tourism Council made it known that, there was a revenue generation of US$233 billion in May throughout Latin America.
Looking back at the previous years, the recovery has chopped an increase in patronage of 180.5%. When this compared to last year, it is a known fact that, passenger traffic has increased exponential according to a report from the International Air Transport Association (IATA).
The Mastercard Institute also brought out a finding to back what International Airport Transport Association brought out, they stipulated that, bookings made from United States, Dominican Republic, Mexico and Jamaica were much higher in percentages compared to the pandemic years.
Another reputable company also embarked on an enquiry and found out that, irrespective of the challenges of the tourism sector, the cruise industry recorded enormous patronage which was better than the pandemic periods. It was found out that, bookings were one-tenth higher than 2019. This clearly shows that the tourism industry is now seeing a revamp in sales of items and patronage of the tourism sector in Latin America.
The director of master’s degree in Economics and Tourism at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) stressed that, the tourism industry is going through a facelift after going through a series of recessions. He continued by saying that, the recovery of the tourism sector would be much faster than predicted by experts. Taking Columbia in perspective, air bookings from June to August were a whopping 304,315. In percentage this figure is 148% which was higher compared to the previous years.
The Minister of Foreign Trade and Tourism Mr. Roberto Sanchez explained that, a total of more than 750,000 tourists visited Peru just after lockdown measures were relaxed. This number of tourists helped the country Peru to generate an amount of 3.7 billion dollars in foreign exchange.
The tourism industry in Chile had its share of the hardship in during the pandemic period. But the tourism guide estimated that, it will take close to 51 months to return to the periods where there were no COVID-19. This is because, the records indicate up to six million people have visited Chile just after lockdown. Experts believe that, Latin America is about to witness a sudden rise and patronage in the tourism industry.
Source: Tourism Review
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