PRESS RELEASE - 26 APRIL 2016
Ministerio de Turismo - Presidencia de la Nación
President Mauricio Macri announced the National Tourism Plan.
SANTOS: “THE MAIN AIM IS TO CREATE 300 THOUSAND NEW JOBS”
The President of Argentina, Mauricio Macri, and the Minister of Tourism, Gustavo Santos, led a ceremony where the Argentine tourism sector pledged to work from a federal perspective, with a strong territorial focus that will also target underprivileged areas. The National Tourism Plan for the next 4 years was introduced at a ceremony led by President Mauricio Macri this afternoon. At the Casa Rosada (Argentina’s presidential palace), it was announced that the Plan will be carried out through a federal agreement backed by the Federal Tourism Council (comprising the 23 provincial states), the city of Buenos Aires and the entire private sector, represented by the Argentine Chamber of Tourism, which encompasses 20 national associations.
“The main aim is to create 300 thousand new jobs by 2020 across the entire value chain of the tourism industry. Tourism creates genuine, sustainable jobs; we have the ability to create new jobs in the regional economies, strengthening community roots, innovating, applying new technologies, empowering entrepreneurs and promoting training and quality in tourist destinations nationwide” stated the Minister of Tourism, Gustavo Santos.
The plan will be implemented in collaboration with all levels of government through the Interministerial Tourism Facilitation Committee, the Federal Tourism Council and the private sector, in a Federal Agreement for the Development of Tourism.
The main aims of the Plan include: improving the competitiveness and sustainability of the sector; increasing investment and the development of the regional economies; promoting the creation of jobs, promoting Argentina as the main tourist destination in the region as well as the growth of domestic tourism.
The Plan predicts an increase in domestic tourism by 2020; it is hoped that national tourism numbers will reach 70 million, with spending reaching a total of $170,000 million Argentine Pesos. In terms of international tourism, 9 million tourists are expected to bring in a total of $8 billion US dollars, cementing tourism as the country’s main service export.
Regarding international tourism, Santos stated that “we are going to put Argentina back on the international tourist map; we have set ourselves targets that exceed global growth estimates because we are certain that if the Nation, Provinces, Municipalities and entire Argentine tourism sector work together then we can achieve it”.
Current figures from the USA and Canada are set to double, while Europe will grow significantly and more distant markets will be developed, with a particular emphasis on China, Russia and India. At a regional level, the aim is to recover the Brazilian market, expand tourism from neighbouring countries and boost numbers from the Andean region and Mexico.
Santos said, “working on a regional scale is the priority and we are looking to position Argentina as the leader of regional integration under the South America brand”. This brand will be the result of a concerted regional effort to show that our region is an attractive tourist destination in emerging markets like India or China.
In terms of national tourism, a federal challenge has been set: to get more than 60 per cent of Argentines making at least one trip per year. Today only 47 per cent of Argentines make at least 1 trip per year, whilst the figure in the city of Buenos Aires is 68 per cent.
“We will broaden the base of Argentines who have access to tourism as well as the number of tourist destinations. But above all, we will enable an increasing number of Argentines to travel across the country, which we see as being like a right” Santos said.
Some of the tools we plan to use are to increase investment in the tourism industry; it is the strategic base and to facilitate this investment we will work in synergy with the private sector. This will be done from a territorial perspective, with high-impact public-private investment projects across the country and, above all, focusing on the ‘Belgrano Plan’. In order to do this, investment in tourism will rise to $11.5 billion in direct public investment from the Ministry of Tourism, provincial governments and financing from the Inter-American Development Bank.
The Plan in figures:
- Create 300 thousand jobs
- Position Argentina as the leading tourist destination in South America.
- Increase international visitor numbers by 50% to reach 9 million tourists, investing almost $1 billion US per year. ($950 million US per year, $3.8 billion US in 4 years).
- Increase access to tourism for Argentine citizens: today 47% make 1 trip per year; the aim is to reach 65% of the population by 2020.
- Increase national visitor numbers by 47% to reach 70 million tourists, investing $62.4 billion in the country’s regional economies.
- Increase investment in tourism: $11.5 billion in direct public investment from funding provided by the Ministry of Tourism, the Provinces and international funding (IDB).