MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Foreign tourism in Argentina slips 6% during April

Argentina received 744.000 tourists during the first four months of 2009.

Tourists arriving in Argentina through the country’s main international airport, Ezeiza dropped 6% last April compared to the same month a year ago according to the Statistics and Census office, INDEC.

Revenue fell even more steeply, 23.8%, to 210 million US dollars, mainly because of the global crisis and the influenza pandemic that is rapidly spreading all over the world with special intensity in the Southern hemisphere where the winter season is beginning.

According to the release from Indec last April 183.000 people arrived at Buenos Aires Ezeiza airport while the number leaving totalled 113.582, which represents a 16.8% increase over the same month a year ago.

European tourists were the main inflow with 27.7%, followed by Brazil, 24.1%, the rest of the Americas, 18.6%, US and Canada, 15.1%, Chile 8% and the rest of the world, 6.6%.

In the first four months of this year the number of tourists arriving in Argentina totalled 744.525 which represented an influx of 950 million US dollars to the economy.

Tourists leaving Argentina reached 527.063. Expenses abroad during these four first months were estimated in 731 million US dollars, including 158 million in April.

This leaves a slim surplus of 52 million US dollars in April and 220 million in the four months.

The average stay of tourists in Argentina was 13.8 days with the Europeans leading with 22.7 days.

Average daily expenditure of foreign tourists was estimated in 83.3 US dollars with the highest expenditure accounted for by tourists from the rest of America and Brazil with 128 and 124 US dollars respectively.

Argentine tourists abroad spend on average 14.3 days.