The National Director of Tourism in Chile, Daniel Pardo, assessed positively the performance of the touristic sector in the country during 2012. He highlighted the record numbers registered in foreign tourist arrivals and domestic tourism.
"During 2012 we received 3,468,475 foreign tourists, which meant an increase of 13% compared to 2011. This is the highest growth in the past seven years," said Pardo. "This scenario places us within the countries with the best growth rates recorded. Global growth is 4% according to UNWTO and the American continent records the same figure".
In relation to domestic tourism, Daniel Pardo said that "…not only did we close the year with figures that position domestic tourism as part of the 70% of the touristic activity in the country, but also it is important to note that the number of trips made during peak season of 2012 exceeded last year’s numbers by 12.7%. "
He added: "Successfully, we were able to impact Chileans and foreigners with campaigns like Chile is YOURS and Chile Travel, as well as new and innovative promotional activities conducted during the year, both at home and abroad".
The Chile is YOURS Fair, which attracted more than 45,000 people in its first edition, was one of the national promotion initiatives that brought together the main touristic attractions.
To know what the reality of this sector is Pardo mentioned a study conducted in 2012, which reported that tourism employs 273,495 people in the country, representing about 3.7% of national employment. Comparing this data with 2006 numbers the amount of jobs in tourism has grown by 9.13%, equivalent to 1.76% per annum.
Finally, the National Director of Sernatur highlighted the launch of the National Tourism Strategy as the great achievement of 2012, which sets the path to follow until 2020. "The National Tourism Strategy is built on five pillars: advocacy, sustainability, investment and competitiveness, quality and human capital and market intelligence," he said.