El Salvador wants to increase tourism

El Salvador would like to increase tourism in the country. Foreign tourists, with their dollars to spend, represent a possible source of positive economic growth, and the country has many assets to showcase if it could figure out how to package them.

A couple of stories recently make this point. The first is a story titled El Salvador puts out a welcome mat by a travel writer on Canada.com. The story begins:
This Central American country is cautiously emerging from a civil war and devastating earthquake to take its first steps as a tourist destination.
and ends with:
Do I recommend El Salvador? Yes. Highly. However, as in any situation anywhere, let caution and discretion be your first guide.

The Associated Press recently ran this story about the efforts of Central American countries to promote tourism. Included are statistics about El Salvador's tourism industry:
For El Salvador and Guatemala, two countries that survived years of civil conflict, tourism has become the countries' second-largest source of income, after money sent home by migrants living in the United States.

Last year, 13 years after peace accords ended that country's civil war, 1.1 million people visited El Salvador and spent $644 million. In Guatemala, where the civil war ended in 1996, 1.3 million tourists visited, spending $868 million.

Comments

Anonymous said…
I do hope that if El Salvador is to promote any form of tourism, I hope it's under the lines of "eco tourism", I really don't want to see the emergence of "resorts" at the same pace that malls have been resurfacing.
El-Visitador said…
eco-tourism:

Hiked to El Imposible, canyoned Montecristo, saw the sunset at Miramundo, rafted down the high Lempa, kayaked Jaltepeque, boated from El Tamarindo to Meanguera and explored the mangroves of Jaltepeque, to mention a few.

Look, this is stuff good enough for us locals, but can't hold a candle to Rio Dulce boating, Guanaja diving, Masaya volcano or Thousand Island touring, Pacuare rafting, or Pipeline Road birding.

I mean, take a biologist-guided tour of Jaltepeque and she'll spend 50% of the time speaking about the monkeys and raccoons that are not there... because people ate them.

All of the other C.A. places I mentioned, in contrast, are full of animals. We can't compete. Isolated, all-inclusive deals such as Barillas Marina or Salinitas could survive on their own, but are beginning to be taxed to death by this insane new Ministry and its crazy world-tour campaigns. These fools know nothing about niche marketing.

Money flushed down the toilet, guaranteed.

You should have lived here when ISTU spent a pretty penny to get Trump's predecessors to host Miss Universe in El Salvador, back in the 1970's.

Nice ROI we got out of that one.
Anonymous said…
El visitador:

The salvadorean oligarchy doesn't give a damn about the ecology of El Salvador.Señor Ricardo Poma has decimated finca El Espino, Costa del Balsamo, and now he wants to destroy the mangrovers and its associated marine ecosystem, building malls along the coast.