Countries like Argentina, Chile, Peru, Colombia and especially Brazil are being watched attentively by the World Tourism Organization, or UNWTO, because of the “interesting growth” in the number of international tourists coming from those countries, an organization official said here Saturday.
The UNWTO director for the Americas, Carlos Vogeler, said that in the specific case of Brazil, the South American nation shows a considerable hike in the number of tourists traveling from that country.
“The Brazilian market has practically doubled its capacity as a source of tourists in recent years, and to a lesser degree the same phenomenon can be seen in Argentina, Chile and Peru,” Vogeler said in an interview on the Riviera Maya, where he attended the meeting of the World Travel and Tourism Council, or WTTC.
As for Mexico, he said that besides already setting a standard for other countries on the continent, it does so at a global level as well. “Mexico has undoubtedly set an excellent standard at a global level in the application of a government policy that helps strengthen and promote tourism,” he said.
“Mexico has a government policy very much oriented to the development of tourism. As international observers, we see it as a policy capable of setting an example for many other countries with ambitious goals,” the official of the United Nations tourism organization said.
He added that Mexico is the first country that, from the presidency of the G20, “has incorporated tourism as a subject on the work schedule - these are real policies that aren’t just words on paper.”
The UNWTO regional director recalled that world tourism projections predict 1 billion international tourists by the end of this year, 1.4 billion in 2020 and 1.8 billion by 2030.
He said that the Asia-Pacific region led by China will maintain its tourist leadership in the coming decades, both in the number of tourists traveling from countries in that region and the number of foreigners it welcomes - without forgetting domestic tourism, for which some very imposing figures are also expected.
Friday saw the closure of the WTTC’s 1st Regional Summit of the Americas, which for two days brought together more than 500 heads of international companies of the sector to propose and analyze strategies for boosting world tourism.
