Latin America showed up at the Top Résa Tourism Fair

Over a dozen Latin American countries attended the Top Résa International Fair that concluded Saturday after a three-day session in the French coastal city of Deauville.

Mexico, the world’s third nation as to the number of incoming tourists, was one of the most sought-after stands in the tradeshow.

The goal of Mexico’s tourist authorities is to close the ongoing year with far more foreign visitors than the 19.7 million sunbathers who traveled to the nation in 2002, a figure that accounted for a 0.7 percent slide compared to the numbers posted in 2001, though.

Cuba and the Dominican Republic –two of the Caribbean and Latin American tourist destinations Europeans look for the most- also had a hands-on participation at the French marketplace.

Chile’s pavilion, notwithstanding being its first time ever at the Top Résa, also left a pretty good impression in the public and among experts. “We’re eager to showcase our country’s image in France, one of the world’s top tourist senders,” said Mauricio Vergara, head of the Chilean delegation.

For Mr. Vergara, Chile’s presence in Deauville is “not only an experience that should pay off in the future, but also an opportunity to strengthen our contacts.”

Last year, France became the European nation that sent most tourists to Chile, jumping ahead of such traditional dispatchers are Germany and Spain. In Mr. Vergara’s opinion, this is a trend Chilean authorities want to give a big boost to.

Several Central American nations came to Deauville as a solid bloc with a view to “share promotional efforts and offer European tourists a multitude of top-quality destinations teeming with cultural values of the own and standing at a stone’s throw from one another,” Panama’s minister of tourism Liriola Pitti pointed out.

The Canal Zone is Panama’s number-one tourist attraction. “It’s both an icon and a sign of identity for our country,” Mrs. Pitti explained.

In her view, the country has been getting larger numbers of European tourists, “a situation,” she said, “that could allow the nation to crack the one-million-tourist plateau this year.”

Last year, a record number 800,000 travelers trekked to Panama and spent $678 million, a figure that made the leisure industry the country’s premiere income source for the first time ever, even ahead of the Canal Zone that raked in $53 million less in 2002.

The Venezuelan stand was animated by the presence of the South American country’s vice minister of tourism, Wilmar Alfredo Castro Soteldo, who took advantage of his stay in France to try to speed up the creation of a brand-new state-run airline scheduled to be fully operational next year.

Peru’s promotional efforts also ran at a white-heat pace during the fair. Its tourism authorities have reported heftier revenues this year and expect to double their presence in tradeshows like the Top Résa.

“We hope to attend some 30 big fairs around the world this year, fourteen of them in Europe and four in Spain,” said Lydia Garcia Cortez, coordinator of the European Market Division for PromPeru.

And Brazil also did it own thing. The South American giant sported one of the largest and most visited pavilions at the fair.