Interview: Argentina Tourism Minister Dreams of Visa Free Travel Across the Region
Photo Credit: Gustavo Santos, Argentina's tourism minister, is focusing on increasing the country's connectivity by wooing airlines to launch additional flights. Argentina Ministry of Tourism
Skift Take
Argentina is breaking from the past and hopes that its diversity of offerings attracts new types of travelers. The tourism minister comes from the private sector and he's bringing new energy into tourism promotion efforts.
Argentina isn't the only tourism growth story in Latin America in 2018. But its culture and national brand help set it apart in a region that many international travelers tend to homogenize.
Argentina and other Latin American countries like Colombia, Mexico, and Peru have boosted their tourism investments in the past five years to grow their international arrivals. But Argentina is a stable beacon in an increasingly volatile region with economic shocks, political scandals, populism, energy crises, and violence in certain tourist areas. Argentina President Mauricio Macri, who took office in 2015, has enacted policies that have helped stabilize the economy.
Natural resources and agriculture have helped make Argentina Latin America's second-largest economy, and government officials want tourism to play a larger role. Argentina's international visitor spending was the third highest in the region in 2016 (4.4 billion), behind Mexico and Brazil, according to the World Travel & Tou
