Argentina anticipates boost in travel to the papal homeland
Skift Take
The whole of Argentina could use the tourism boost, but Buenos Aires will see the biggest surge with religious travelers walking the steps of Pope Francisco’s childhood.
Drive around Argentina and you can’t help noticing roadside shrines honouring Gauchito Gil – a sort of Robin Hood gaucho hero – and La Difunta Correa, a protective patron saint adored by lorry drivers, and sometimes referred to as Our Lady of the Broken Fanbelt.
The Argentine tourist industry is already tapping in to the hard-currency potential of the latest shrine-candidate, Pope Francisco I, with local firms trying to link hotel openings to the pope’s homeland. But a pope tour might, in fact, open up a few new neighbourhoods and regions.
His birthplace, Flores, is at the end of the Línea A underground railway. Jorge Mario Bergoglio was born here – on calle Membrillar (it’s house no 531, by the way, for t
