MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Number of tourists to Argentina drops 8% in November

The number of foreign tourists arriving in Argentina during November fell 8% over the same month last year, according to government report from the statistics office INDEC.

The release says that in November 188,705 foreigners entered the country at the Ezeiza International Airport on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, Argentina's main access point. Brazil, with 39,286 visitors, and Chile, with 14,297, were the Latinamerican countries that contributed the largest number of tourists, while 59,722 arrived from Europe and 27,781 from the United States and Canada. Meantime in November, 110,082 Argentines travelled abroad departing from Ezeiza, an increase of 6.2% over the same month the previous year. INDEC also said that the total money spent by foreign tourists in November was 312 million US dollars, 5.8% less than for the same month in 2007, while the median daily per capita spending by visitors was 135.90 USD. In 2007, arrivals of foreign tourists to Argentina grew by 15% to 2.2 million visitors, who came mainly from Brazil, the United States, Chile, Spain and Italy, according to government statistics. With revenues of 4.17 billion USD during 2007, tourism was Argentina's third-largest source of foreign currency.