MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Conflicting views about Chilean Patagonia tourism prospects for this season

Torres del Paine national park, the main attraction in Chilean Patagonia

Magallanes region in the extreme south of Chile received in the twelve months of 2009 an estimated 600.000 tourists which is almost the same number than in 2008, according to primary data from Chile’s Tourism Office, Sernatur.

However the Office’s cautious estimate for 2010, similar to that of the two previous years, has triggered a controversy with representatives from the private sector who paint a less positive scenario.

Christian Miranda head of the Regional Tourism Office said that the increase in the number of tourists visiting the region this year “could experience zero growth or in the best of scenarios expand 2%, but it can also drop 4 or 5% compared to 2008”

Miranda said that currently the number of tourists visiting Torres del Paine national park, one of Magallanes region’s main attractions remains “unchanged” with the only difference that overseas travellers have dropped but domestic tourism has increased.

“Maybe Chileans spend less, but what matters is that the number of visitors remains stable. We know Argentina is down and they are not coming as in previous seasons, but we should be looking to Brazil”, said Miranda.

He revealed that 250.000 Brazilians visited Chile in 2009 but only 6% of them ventured to Chilean Patagonia.

Anyhow, “Senatur and the tourism promotion plan have been targeting those markets as well as wooing domestic visitors, and we believe we have been successful in keeping a similar number of visitors”.

But Catalina Jaksic president of the Austro Chile Tourism Chamber has another view.

“Hotels, lodges in Torres del Paine has experienced a fall in business of 30% compared to previous years. Besides this season and last season’s visitors are not conventional tourists: they don’t lodge, they don’t spend”, said Ms Jaksic.

“We do not share Senatur’s conclusions based on their samplings”, since Chilean visitors do not generate the same direct and subsidiary activities as foreigners.

Ms Jaksic said that chamber members are targeting the Brazilian market: “they love snow resorts, because they are after what they don’t have, what is different”.

Another tendency which started last season is that tourists virtually wait to the last minute to announce they are coming, “the number of anticipated bookings has dropped dramatically. We hope that as things improve, visitors feel less constrained about coming to the region”.

Finally Ms Jaksic said that the emphasis has moved from big promotion campaigns to internet with attractive agile websites. But she admits this is not the case for many small companies that do much of the local servicing to the tourism industry.