Caribbean & Central America - March 2022

Even those countries popular with tourists prior to the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic have struggled to recover visitor numbers as the pandemic has ebbed and flowed, but a number of regional initiatives are working to boost the industry.

According to the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO), international arrivals in the Americas region as a whole rose 17% in 2021 compared to 2020. However, they remained 63% below pre-pandemic levels, and experts surveyed by the organisation believe that international arrivals will only return to pre-pandemic levels by 2024. In January, the Washington Post reported that combined data from local tourism authorities in Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Guatemala for the first nine months of 2021 showed international arrivals were just 35% of what they were for the same period in 2019. For Guatemala specifically, data from the tourism institute (Inguat) shows total visitor numbers reached 666,000 in 2021, down from 2.56m in 2019. In Costa Rica, tourist arrivals for 2021 represented just 42.8% of the total registered in 2019.

Given the importance of tourism to Central American economies, it is no surprise that authorities are doing their best to encourage visitors to return. Representatives gathered at the international tourism fair (Fitur) in Madrid in January and revealed plans to target Spain and Europe more widely as “priority” markets to reactivate the industry. Panama, the current president of the Central American Tourism Council, said it would promote conservation tourism and small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) in the sector.

For his part, Carlos Umaña, president of the federation of Central American chambers of tourism, said that private and public sectors are working together to develop a multi-destination offering in the region. For example, Panama has held talks with Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic about creating a new tourism route taking in the three countries. Some further takeaways from the event included the need for more infrastructure development, as well as a growing appreciation of the importance of local communities in developing the tourism industry.

Panama will continue to work on sustainable tourism and events tourism, with many international business conventions taking place in the country, and it will also work to prioritise international shopping trips. Thanks to its strategic position between Central and South America, the country is well placed to receive visitors who want to take advantage of shopping opportunities. Nadkyi Duque, president of the Panamanian association of shopping centres (Apacecom), urged the government to prioritise reactivating tourism in order to boost the economy quickly. Panama City’s Tocumen airport is also working to finally open a second terminal after serious delays to its planned expansion programme.

Both Costa Rica and Guatemala have inked agreements with the Spanish airline Iberia to promote their tourism offerings on flights. In January, Guatemala’s President Alejandro Giammattei highlighted internal tourism as a driver of growth, and also said he would change the rules governing cruise ships to increase the number of foreign visitors. Belizean airline Tropic Air has announced the start of flights from San Salvador to Belize City starting 11 February. El Salvador’s tourism authority has also agreed a deal with Colombian airline Avianca on 1 February for one of the company’s planes to carry branding for El Salvador and Surf City, the development targeting surf tourism on the country’s central coast. The plane will operate from Los Angeles, a key market for Salvadoran tourism.

In addition, El Salvador announced on 1 February a further US$100m investment in infrastructure for Surf City, including water treatment plants and posts for the tourism police. The aim is to attract more international surf events, which brought 13,000 visitors and US$15m in income last year, according to President Nayib Bukele. On 8 February El Salvador also inaugurated a new terminal at Oscar Arnulfo Romero International Airport, southeast of the capital, San Salvador, which means the facility can handle wide-bodied planes, as well as boosting capacity to up to 5m passengers per year.

According to the UNWTO, tourism will play an important role in the post-pandemic economic recovery. Tourism-dependent countries need to diversify their offering, for example by developing domestic and rural tourism to boost local economies, it said. The organisation also chose the Dominican Republic as the subject of its first set of country-specific tourism investment guidelines, launched 20 January, which were developed in collaboration with the country’s ministry of tourism and the national export and investment centre (Prodominicana).

The aim is to attract more foreign direct investment in the sector, and the guidelines emphasise the country’s geographic location, economic stability, modern infrastructure, and solid legal framework as positives for investors. While the draw of these factors for investors comes as no surprise, the document could help tourism authorities in other Central American countries as inspiration for their own initiatives (see sidebar).

• UNWTO document

The UNWTO document showcases the potential of public-private collaboration and emphasises the importance of building new models centred on sustainability and innovation. Central American nations have an opportunity to rethink what kind of tourism they want to attract, and to put in place new strategies as global visitor numbers start to tick back up as the pandemic eases.