Chile's tourism unions welcomed the government's announcement to relax restrictions for travelers entering the country, allowing to revive a sector particularly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
"We value the announcement of this measure that we have been requesting for a while, this will put the Chilean tourism sector on the path to recovery, there is still a long way to go but it is a step in the right direction," said the spokeswoman for the Federation of Tourism Companies of Chile (Fedetur in Spanish), Helen Kouyoumdjian.
The announcement made by the Ministry of Health states that as of November 1, the mandatory seven-day quarantine for travelers entering the country will end, a benefit that will be available to everyone who is vaccinated against COVID-19 and has a negative PCR test.
Likewise, the president of the National Chamber of Commerce, Services and Tourism of Chile (CNC in Spanish) said that he "welcomes this excellent announcement, which will undoubtedly help to reactivate one of the hardest-hit sectors of the pandemic, especially now that the holidays are getting closer".
The Minister of Economy, Lucas Palacios, said that this new deregulation "will provide an important boost to the sector, considering that inbound tourism represents 40% of the total industry revenues, which generates almost 600,000 jobs”.
"The Chilean tourism sector depending on inbound tourism lost 60% of its revenue in the 2019-2020 season (due to the social outburst protests) and 95% in the 2020-2021 season (due to the pandemic), so it is very important to make good use of the 2021-2020 season," he added.
In Chile, 1,658,444 people have been infected, of whom 37,512 died.