MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Tourism: Breaking News

Headlines:
Buenos Aires expects 2.26 million tourists; “Historic” year for Chile; Additional weekend flights Punta Arenas-Santiago.

Buenos Aires City expects a record season of 2.26 million tourists this summer, from mid December to March, half of them foreigners. The concerts of the Rolling Stones and U2 are some of the highlights of the season.

This represents a 5% increase over the 2004/05 season and consolidates the Argentine capital as a permanent destination in world tourism.

"There are some very positive indicators, summer is no longer the low season for Buenos Aires and tourists are staying longer", said Marcela Cuesta Deputy Tourism Secretary of Buenos Aires. "For Christmas and New Year most hotels are fully booked particularly the four and five stars, which represents a 10% increase over last year", added Ms Cuesta.

Gabriel Oliveri, head of Four Seasons hotel marketing department confirmed that "December and January have been virtually fully booked since four months ago".

A great influx of visitors from neighbouring countries is also expected for the two weeks when The Rolling Stones and U2 will be playing in Buenos Aires.

Ms Cuesta also underlined the 95.000 "high income" cruise visitors and over 75 vessels' calls that are scheduled for this summer in Argentina's capital. "This is almost 40% increase over last year's cruise season".

For foreigners with hard currency Buenos Aires is a good value money destination with quality hotels, relative safety, excellent for shopping and enjoying good natural food plus the tango shows.

"Tourism is rapidly becoming one of the fastest growing activities in Buenos Aires with a 4,7% impact in the city's GDP with 5,6% of the workforce linked to the expanding industry", said Ms Cuesta.

"Historic" year for Chile

Chilean tourist operators describe 2005 as a "historic" year and forecast the industry will generate an income for the country of 1,5 billion US dollars.

The Chilean Association of Tourism Companies, Achet, reported that between February and last August the number of foreign tourists arriving in Chile increased 11% while Chileans travelling abroad 8%.

Chileans prefer to spend their holidays in Brazil and the Caribbean.

Lorena Arriagada chair of Achet described the year as "historic" and anticipated that 2006 "will be even better".

Chile's Tourist Office estimates that two million people will have visited the country this year.

Additional weekend flights Punta Arenas-Santiago

As of last Sunday Aerolineas del Sur, a subsidiary of Spanish owned Aerolineas Argentinas, has additional flights Santiago-Punta Arenas-Santiago on weekends.

Ana Maria Karelovic Manger of the company's Punta Arenas office said the additional flights are a direct consequence of the "excellent response" to our services with average 85% occupancy"

Sunday's additional flight leaves Santiago at 12:20 with stops in Puerto Montt arriving at Punta Arenas at 15:40 in the afternoon.

The same aircraft leaves for Santiago at 16:20 and reaches the Chilean capital at 20:40.

Another Sunday flight takes off at 10:00 in the morning from Santiago and reaches Punta Arenas at 14:20 with a stop over in Puerto Montt. The return flight leaves at 15:00 and arrives in Santiago 3 hours and 20 minutes later.

On Saturdays there are two daily flights leaving Santiago at 09:00 and 12:50 with a stop over in Puento Montt.

Return flights to Santiago leave Punta Arenas at 14:00 and 16:40, arriving at 17:20 and 21:00 hours.