In this context, Travel2latam spoke with Luis Fernando Fuentes Ibarra, Commercial Director of ProColombia.
What are the expectations for ProColombia's presentation at FIT 2024?
The goal is to continue growing with the visits of Argentine tourists. All these non-resident travelers who come to Colombia are very important to us. That is precisely why this year we have a larger, more numerous presence than last year.
The stand is much larger, we have grown by 30% in size, and the same happened with the Colombian businessmen who come to do business, we went from 20 to 26, even counting offices from some regions of Colombia, and also the Ministry of Tourism of some important regions for us such as the Department of San Andrés, Isla de Providencia and Santa Catalina. What we seek and believe we will achieve is to continue growing in tourism with Argentina.
Last year we had a very important growth of 7% compared to 2022, and this year for July it has been decreasing a little, with a drop of 2%, but we really observe that it is not because of the Colombia destination, but because suddenly Argentines are planning a different time for their vacations or for some other situation, because their departure to other countries in the world has also been decreasing.
We also hope that it will grow every day. Last year we had around 102 thousand Argentine visitors, this year we hope to have a similar number, hopefully a little higher.
How are you doing in relation to the objectives you had originally set for this season?
We are doing very well, because one of our main desires was to grow in connectivity. Without connectivity, there is no way to reach any country. And on the Colombian side, we have grown a lot. We started this year with seven weekly frequencies from Aerolíneas and 14 from Avianca, but this year an additional daily frequency was added to Medellín from Buenos Aires and we also have Gol with seven frequencies a week or a second daily frequency from Buenos Aires to Bogotá.
Additionally, starting December 10, we will have a daily frequency of Avianca flights from Aeroparque to Bogotá, that is, at this time we have 38 weekly frequencies. We also want to be part of the integration of the open skies policy that the Argentine government has proposed, and of course, continue growing in this strong relationship.
There is one particularity that we have considered an achievement, and that is that we observe that the desire of the Argentine who goes to Colombia to return remains, and it is important because it means valuing the destination, the effort and the work of what is being done in Colombia.
Colombia is a very diverse, multicultural destination, with different regions, beauties and perhaps what Argentines like most, they are looking for beach, sun, adventure. We are always developing new destinations because, for example, the new route to Medellin, arouses a lot of interest as a business destination, a nature destination, and obviously of special interest to lovers of the coffee belt.
This new route has also created an important business link…
This business relationship has been growing a lot and recently I was talking to a businessman who was going to the coffee region of Quindío, Caldas and Risaralda in Colombia, who was just going for a walk and ended up organizing a visit to the coffee plantations in the region with a large number of businessmen to see the chain of the coffee cluster, from planting, how it is grown, how it is cared for by families and finally it is exported as the richest, most important and best cared for mild coffee in the world. In other words, they are going to do tourism and also business. And of course, it is a super key route because it takes them to Medellín at the same time as from Buenos Aires to Bogotá, and after Medellín to Pereira, Armenia and Manizales there are permanent flights. And from Medellín to the world as well.
We have the particularity of having a large number of cities and countries that we connect from Colombia, that is one of our strengths; the great connectivity, which is part of the process of how to connect Colombia with the world.