Buenos Aires Tango Festival packs economic, cultural wallop

The Fifth Buenos Aires Tango Festival gathers over 100,000 visitors and churns out earnings for more than $10 million with a little help from international tourists that flock to Argentina lured by a devaluated local currency and the gloominess hanging over this popular dancing and singing.

Eduardo Hecker, secretary of economic development for the Argentine capital, pointed out that roughly 70 percent of foreigners traveling to that city only consume Tango-related products and items. That puts earning estimates in the neighborhood of $9.4 million.

The festival got cranked up on March 1 and will stretch out into Sunday with dance courses, concerts and other free shows, plus the First World Tango Championship for dancing aficionados and professional hoofers. Almost 300 couples from 15 countries are expected to shake a leg all the way to the top.

Festival planners reckon a hefty turnout of over half a million attendants, including 100,000 visitors. There are no official estimates as to how many of them will be coming from overseas.

Mr. Hecker said the festival’s contribution to the local gross product comes to pass amid soaring tourist businesses that spawned $1.1 billion in the capital during the course of the past year. Those numbers are expected to climb to $1.5 billion in 2003, chiefly driven by flows of incoming foreign visitors.

”Argentina is now welcoming more tourists after the local currency devaluation. However, such activities as the festival provide a permanent cultural and tourist product. We believe Buenos Aires Tango is definitely on the rise as it’s added to the annual tourist agenda,” Mr. Hecker went on to say.

The Secretary of Economic Development said the world’s trade flows associated to tourism account for $200 million every year, and only a meager 5 percent is snared by Argentina. That’s why such initiatives as this festival convey both an ingrained cultural value and a tool to increase that ratio.”

”Tango was already all the rage in the world back in the 1940s and 1950s. But it continued knocking down barriers and eventually reached out to such unusual places as Japan and Finland. The new musical phenon grew on and evolved into very specific economic activities, like footwear for female dancers,” Mr. Hecker detailed.

A case in point of the spread of tango is the place of origin of many dancers competing in the World Championship. There are couples –besides from Latin America- coming from Spain, Germany, Switzerland, France, Hungary, Slovenia, Japan and China.

A similar situation happens with those who have signed up for the dance course. There’ll be couples hailing from Germany, Bulgaria, Denmark, Iceland, Italy, Norway, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Switzerland, the United States and Japan.

A state-sponsored poll taken among attendants to last year’s festival showed that Europeans and Americans are the foreign visitors more drawn to this musical genre. The poll also revealed that going to the dancehalls and attending tango classes are the most sought-after activities among them.

As to visitors from neighboring nations, Brazilians and Chileans harness the possibility of attending tango course, besides going to theaters and restaurants featuring performers’ shows.

Polltakers also disclosed that tango is a powerful engine for the promotion and sale of related items, such as dancing shoes, CDs, books and apparels.