Tourists Keep Arriving In Record Numbers

Tourists keep coming to Argentina to record numbers, the Tourism Secretariat said this week. In 2007 alone, 2,227,849 millions tourists came to Argentina through the EZE airport. That’s up 15% from the previous year, despite higher prices for food, clothing and just about everything else, including international airfare. The travelers came largely from Brazil (489,481), the U.S. (286,240) and Chile 253,926). Spain and Italy rounded out the top five.

Tourism was up worldwide in 2007, according to the UN’s World Tourism Organization, which provided data for the first eight months of the year:

“International tourist arrivals for the first eight months of 2007 point to a continuation of the sustained growth rate experienced over the past years. According to the latest UNWTO World Tourism Barometer, this trend is likely to continue through the remainder of 2007, with year-end growth estimated at 5.7%, which would put international arrivals to 880-900 million.”

Argentina’s numbers, while rising at a much faster clip than other country’s figures, are still paltry compared with those from the world’s leading tourist destination, France. About 79 million tourists visited France in 2006, according to the UNWTO. Spain ranked second with almost 59 million and the U.S. third with 51 million.

Link: UNWTO
Link: Argentine Tourism Secretariat