MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina needs dollars and will strongly promote tourism; 625.000 cruise visitors expected this season

According to minister Meoni some 598 calls of cruise vessels are expected this 2019/20 season in the port of Buenos Aires

Argentina is considering the updating and redesign of port infrastructure in Buenos Aires to help improve docking facilities for cruise vessels. The announcement was done by Transport minister Mario Meoni given the growing number of tourists arriving at the Argentine capital.

“So many tourists are arriving to Buenos Aires, we definitively need an upgrading and redesign of port facilities for the many cruise vessels”, said the minister. “This means not only improving conditions when landing, but also access to the city itself”.

The minister made a tour of the cargo operations and the cruise terminal, before meeting the media for remarks.

This current 2019/20 cruise season Buenos Aires expects the arrival of some 625.000 visitors from 598 vessel calls. To this must be added that the port of Buenos Aires receives some 60% of containers arriving in the country and some 800 cargo vessels operate annually, both from high seas and fluvial.

Meanwhile in Madrid the Argentine tourism minister, Matias Lammens announced the country was going “to work strongly to ensure the number of visitors to Argentina increases every year”

Addressing the Ibero-American Conference of Tourism ministers and operators, Lammens said that Argentina's immediate challenge is to increase the influx of hard currency, that is dollars, and for this the country needs “to consolidate investment in infrastructure, so we can build new ports, highways and hotels”

“Argentina is facing a very delicate macroeconomic situation and we need to make short term payments to honor our debts, and since Argentina does not print dollars, we need to earn them”.

Some 120 million Chinese are outbound tourists of which Argentina only hosts some 80.000, “when we are well aware they find the country very attractive, particularly Patagonia and Antarctica“.

Lammens added that beside improving infrastructure, ”we understand that connectivity is essential for Argentina. For this reason the government is committed to supporting Aerolineas Argentinas and provide an open skies policy to any airline interested in investing in Argentina”