tourism

Regional tourism growing

The World Tourism Organization says Central America’s tourism growth rate is the world’s highest.

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Multidimensional:In Central America you can vacation at the beach, in a rainforest or in one of the region’s historic colonial towns.1063607

Tourism in Central America grew at an unprecedented rate in 2008.

According to the Central American Tourism Agency (CATA), 2.9 million tourists visited the region during the first four months of this year, a 12.3 percent increase and 325,000 tourists more than during the same period last year.

The World Tourism Organization (WTO) estimated that tourism in the region grew slightly more, or 13 percent, and that Central America has the highest rate of growth in tourism in the world, ahead of the Middle East (12 percent) and Southern Asia (10 percent).

By comparison, tourism in North America grew 8 percent, South America 7 percent and the Caribbean 5 percent.

The Caribbean is probably Central America's principal competitor as a tourist destination. Yet, even though the Caribbean continues to attract a greater number of tourists than Central America, said Pilar Cano, CATA's director, many Europeans have started looking for new places to discover. “The typical Caribbean product---a beach and a hotel with everything included--- is starting to lose its allure. In fact, the number of Europeans going to the Caribbean has fallen, while the number going to Central America is increasing.”

According to CATA, around 142,000 Europeans visited the region between January and April of 2008, a 12 percent increase over the first four months of 2007. And those numbers don't include Costa Rica. Most of the Europeans came from Spain, Great Britain, France, Germany and Italy.

CATA is trying to establish deeper relations with European tour operators, promoting Central America as a “multidestination” for art and architecture, beaches and mountains, quiet retreats and vibrant nightlife.

The potential economic benefits of increased tourism have not escaped the Consejo Centroamericano de Turismo, which held a meeting last Tuesday with most of the tourism ministers of Central America and the presidents of various chambers of tourism. Politicians and business leaders signed a declaration affirming the importance of developing a sound strategy for promoting and developnig tourism in the region

Jaime Campuzano, interim president of the Federación de Cámaras de Turismo de Centroamérica (Fedecatur), noted that one of the main objectives of their collective effort is to boost the number of airlines flying to Central America and the frequency of flights. Equally important is the connectivity between different countries. That strengthens intraregional tourism, which accounts for 43 percent of the all Central American tourism.

Toward that end, Campuzano said, action has been taken to facilitate immigration and customs and have flights between countries considered domestic.”