Ricardo Sosa, Executive Secretary of the National Institute for Tourism Promotion (INPROTUR) of the Argentine Republic, spoke to Travel Bulletin on the destinations road map to 2023 and its sustainable future.
How positive a process has it been to reinstate your place in the UK market?
Well, it's a very important time for us, with the reactivation of tourism once again, it's a very different approach from this time a year ago. Last year was a year that still had a lot of restrictions in place, a lot of the borders were closed and Argentina, from April onwards, started opening the borders and started to lift all the restrictions. That was the beginning of our reopening to tourism.
This year at WTM, we brought along 20 partners with us. Us and our partners were seeing that tourists are slowly coming back and airlines are joining them, with British Airways confirming a direct flight from Heathrow to Buenos Aires that will begin in March next year.
How has the road to recovery been laid out since lifting the restrictions?
As of the end of October, Argentina was the only country in South America that has absolutely no restrictions with regards to Covid-19: that means no masks, no PCR tests, absolutely nothing. Since May, the month after we lifted the restrictions, until October, Argentina had already recuperated 54% of all of tourists that they had in 2019.
Three very good signs are the growing interest and confirmation from airlines that they are restarting the schedule to Argentina, the fact that we had 20 partners here wanting to do business with the UK, and that the UK partners really wanted to meet with Argentinian operators to grow their business.
Last year saw the launch of 'La Ruta Natural', a showcase of the various natural experiences on offer. How important did the natural offerings and sustainable tourism become as you reevaluated your approach post-pandemic?
'La Ruta Natural' was created with three goals, spanning the immediate, medium, and long term. We were very recently living in a pandemic and what the tourists wanted was to just go outside and not be inside closed doors. The idea of creating this platform was to promote nature and to open Argentina to the world and showcase the natural offerings Argentina has.
In the medium term, we thought "Okay, so now pandemic is over. Tourists are going back to their natural tastes which are urban and nature, urban being the key market." We want to continue to reinforce the natural offerings in Argentina to make sure that style of travel is here to stay.
On a third level, and a longer term one, the Government is going to give money to the local communities to build infrastructures that increase the role of natural and outdoor tourism in Argentina. This is a great proposition for tourists, who will have a whole choice of new experiences across the destination, and secures a sustainable future for Argentinian communities.
