Verónica Kunze Neubauer, the Undersecretary of Tourism at Chiles Ministry of Economy, Development and Tourism, spoke to Travel Bulletin about regaining the nations share in the market and its spot on travellers bucket lists.
Following Chile's return to WTM last month, Travel Bulletin heard the latest on the destination's grand plans for returning to the market and regaining its place as a must-visit destination.
How was the response from the market at WTM?
It was really great to be at WTM. Our partners had valuable meetings, they saw there is a growing interest in going to Chile, especially now, as from October 1, we eliminated all our sanitary restrictions. For those who are not vaccinated, they still have to show a negative PCR result, but for the ones that are vaccinated, they just have to show their vaccination pass and they can travel wherever they want. That's an insurance for travelers that want to come to Chile; it's a safe country in those terms. We're finalising what we are planning for our summer in Chile next year, from January and February, and our medium- to long-term promotion.
On that note, how are making your presence as a destination known once again to regain your market share?
We are starting our new international marketing plan to see how tourism has changed with the pandemic, to understand what tourists want from new experiences and how the pandemic has changed their travel plans.
We're trying to see what we can offer travellers, because in Chile, the longest country in the world, we have the deserts in the north, we have the fjords, the lakes, and Patagonia in the south, and we have the metropolitan centre. We're also intent on attracting MICE tourism, we have the infrastructure for that, which is very, very good.
Chile is very much in that process of understanding what may have changed, what new experiences we can offer, what work we should be doing with our communities, our landscapes, and our culture. We have very interesting experiences on offer, not the same ones that we were offering two years ago, and we're trying to spotlight that.
How important is connectivity to Chile going to be as you regain your tourism numbers over the next couple of years?
During the pandemic, we lost a lot of connectivity with a lot of airlines. We are working together as a government and with private industry to attract them back. We're still trying to find out what they need from us and what we can offer to put our efforts together to see how we can return to previous figures from the beginning, and then how we can increase that.
Connectivity for us is very important, because we're so far away! Our main goal for now is trying to return to pre-pandemic levels.
