Uruguay seeks to promote the arrival of tourists from the Americas

The Ministry of Tourism of Uruguay makes important efforts to recover the volume of tourists that it had prior to the pandemic, with this objective it presented itself with a stand in the ANATO Tourist Showcase. There we have been able to exclusively interview the National Director of Tourism Roque Baudean. We share his responses below: 

How do you describe Uruguay's participation in the ANATO Tourist Showcase?
We have been participating for many years, Colombia is a market that has been growing year after year and although flights had been interrupted due to the pandemic, as of December of last year they began to fly to our country again. Avianca operates direct flights from Bogotá to Montevideo and has now announced an increase in frequencies, they would go to five weekly. We have gone to the fair to participate precisely, among other things, to hold meetings to enhance connectivity and even make an agenda of promotions and actions that we are going to do so that the route is successful and brings many visitors to the country.

According to your vision, how has the summer season that is about to end been?
A number of options that we wanted to make when we opened the borders have been complicated by not having reciprocity with Argentina and Brazil. Argentina even today keeps the land border closed for regular passenger transport. This reduces the volume of tourists from important markets such as Rosario, Mendoza, Córdoba, Buenos Aires and Santa Fe. These lines carry many people from one side to the other east and in the case of Uruguay it affects many different destinations in the country.
For the diagnosis that we made in August of last year, I believe that in some way the objectives were more than fulfilled, we understood that the high-level Argentine segment was going to arrive in Punta del Este and that is how it happened. It is important to note that Argentina is the most important issuing market in Uruguay. In January the numbers have been very positive and in February as well. The existing air frequencies had a very high demand and the river passenger lines worked with 2 and 3 daily frequencies each company, also with a large number of tourists. Obviously that is practically half of what they expected this year, but it has been a very important flow. So in general we can say that it was a good season.

What kind of initiatives will you implement for the rest of the year?
We are going to continue promoting destinations to reactivate the sector and generate demand in important source markets. We will participate in several international events and workshops because we understand that it is an obligation within a public and private sector to try to reach the goals with an ambitious schedule that is mainly in the Americas and Europe.