Tourism Stands for Major Powerhouse in Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador

Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador have shelled out more money than any other Latin American country in the promotion of their own travel industry. Armed with an array of top-flight exhibitors full of gaudiness, traditions and great cultural values, the three pack put out all the stops at the recently concluded World Tourism Market in London.

Peru, for instance, has deployed a $500,000 publicity campaign in the U.K., the country’s number-one tourist sending market alongside Spain and Germany, following the tremendous success that promotional blitz had in the United States.

With a 19 percent growth –five points above the estimated 14 percent increase for this year- Peru’s leisure sector is moving strong and benefiting from slumping markets in Asia and the Middle East.

Ecuador came back to the London WTM with Tzaraminda Naychapi, the chief of an Amazonian tribe. Patricio Tamariz, executive director of the nation’s Mixed Fund for Tourism Promotion, said his country “has the intention of making travel and tourism the leading economic sector, based on such offerings as nature parks, huge biodiversity and the Galapagos Islands, its flagship attraction.”

Bolivia is also going at great lengths to portray itself as a world-class travel destination that has sloughed off its traditional Andean image and hanged a somewhat unknown shingle outside its door. The breathtaking Salar de Uyuni, the largest salt deposit on the face of the earth, is a good case in point.

Another destination that Bolivians are trying to put on the map is Cerro Rico de Potosi, a larger-than-life place where Spanish conquistadors dug out silver in quantities good enough to build a bridge spanning the two countries over the Atlantic Ocean.

For Bolivia, tourism is the light at the end of the tunnel following two years of domestic upheaval and economic recession. In 2003, the country was visited by more than 350,000 vacationers, a figure that has been surpassed by 20 percent so far this year.