Argentina: historic growth of foreign tourism in 2023

The Executive Secretary of INPROTUR, Ricardo Sosa, revealed that between January and May 2023 there was a historic growth in foreign tourism in Argentina compared to the same period of previous years, highlighting the markets of the United States and Canada that registered the highest growth of the last 13 years. In this sense, he highlighted that "beyond the comparative records that we made with the last year of the pre-pandemic, today we are confirming that there is historical growth, which involves more than 10 years of official statistics." Likewise, he revealed that the constant arrival of foreign tourists generated more than 2,000 million dollars to Argentina.

If January to May 2023 is compared with January to May 2019, ten countries already emit more tourists than in the pre-pandemic, this means that they recovered 100% of the tourist movement and grew above 2019.

The recovery and growth ranking is as follows: Uruguay 161%, United States 116%, Chile 112%, Canada 100%, Russia 102%, Costa Rica 120%, Panama 234%, Turkey 112%, Guatemala 150%, El Salvador 111% and United Arab Emirates 1206%.

Historic Growths: United States

In the historical comparison, the 664,809 American tourists who arrived between January and May 2023 is the highest number in the same period of the last 13 years, until now the highest growth had been registered in 2019 with 558,732, something that was easily surpassed this year: “Even in the monthly record, the income of American tourists was always higher than the same as in the last year of the pre-pandemic, we from Inprotur are executing a very important management plan, to have an idea of these issues, for example, In these first five months alone, we have carried out 22 face-to-face actions in the United States that included promotional activations for the final public at sporting events such as the PGA Tour or Indycar, public road activations, participation in fairs such as Routes America and Seatrade Cruise Global, campaigns positioning with the Tesoros Argentinos program, participation in workshops and generation of trade missions in Miami, Chicago and New York or the recently held Buy Argentina dedicated exclusively to Patagonia in New York and Los Angeles, something historic, since it is the the first time that it was carried out with the specific proposal of this region, we have also generated a Press Trip taking journalists from different media outlets from the United States to Patagonia, La Rioja, San Juan and Corrientes, all actions to position and promote Argentina in the market American and that paid off with these historical records”, Sosa indicated.

Canada

Likewise, Sosa highlighted the growth of the Canadian market: "In this case, during the first five months of 2023, 43,031 Canadian tourists entered Argentina, setting another historical record for that period in the last 13 years, since in 2019 42,059 had entered and it was the highest income record, something that has now been surpassed”.

"Without a doubt this is something very positive for Argentina, because we are collaborating in the generation of foreign currency and in parallel with the growth of international tourism to our country, an objective that we had set ourselves as soon as we started the management and that was affected by the pandemic, however in less than a year we are already generating historic growth of which the entire business tourism community that accompanies us in the actions we carry out abroad is part of it”, he highlighted.

Other countries

Continuing with the historical growth records of foreign tourist arrivals, Sosa specified that seven countries have grown more in this period than in the last six years: "Panama, Costa Rica, Turkey, Guatemala, Russia, the United Arab Emirates and El Salvador also have historical growth in the comparison of the last six years. For example, 7,141 tourists entered Panama between January and May 2023, easily exceeding the records of the last six years; 8,326 tourists entered Costa Rica, breaking the historical record of 2019 when 6,899 tourists had entered in that period; Similarly, 3,124 tourists entered Guatemala, the highest figure in the last six years and that had occurred in 2019 with 2,222 Guatemalan tourists,” the national official explained.

Sosa explained that between January and May 2023, 3,044,932 tourists from all over the world entered Argentina and the 12 countries mentioned in this report represent a total of 1,652,334 foreign tourists, almost 55% of those three million.

He explained that the entry of these 3 million foreign tourists, "produced 2,300 million dollars to the Argentine Republic, becoming an important generation of foreign currency for our country, that is why we are going to continue working intensely in all countries, so that the growth be superlative and in just one year we can recover and grow above the pre-pandemic numbers and in fact, in some markets such as those mentioned above we already have growth with historical impacts, it is the challenge we have with all the technical teams from Inprotur” .