MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Foreign tourists to Chile up 16.2% in first half of 2006

Foreign visitors to Chile in the first half of the year totalled 1.249.578, up 16.2% over the same period a year ago with revenue totalling 722 million US dollars, (up 11.4%) according to the latest release from the country's National Tourism Service Office, Sernatur.

Last year figures show that 2.207.082 foreign tourists arrived in Chile with an average expenditure of 503 US dollars. Statistics show that only the number of tourists from Germany declined (5.6%), with a significant increase among those coming from South America, 16.7%.

Tourists from Argentina increased 10.8%; from Brazil, 11.3%; Peru 16.4% and Bolivia a whooping 58.5% basically following the elimination of the need of a passport to visit Chile. Colombians also registered a significant increase of 29.7% in 2005.

The increase in the number of visitors from North America was below average, 13.9% with Canada registering the highest growth 22.8% compared to Mexico's 13.6% and United States 12.3%.

Tourism numbers from Europe were quite erratic. The overall increase was 9% with Britain 18.9%; Spain 10.9%; France 9.3%; Italy 8.2% and Germany declining 5.6%.

Among the group of European visitors with lesser impact in numbers, Holland comes ahead with a 20.1% increase followed by Sweden with 6.4%. The 2005 Chilean tourism report points out the growing importance of Oceania with Australia leading with an overall increase of 17.5%.