Peru is expected to welcome 600,000 foreign tourists during the rest of 2021, according to projections of the Peruvian Association of Travel Agencies and Tourism (Apavit). The projection indicates that most of the tourists will come from the United States.
"We have to do constant monitoring. The reactivation will take a certain time and it will depend on us (private sector) to accelerate the reactivation of tourism activity," said the president of Apavit, Ricardo Acosta.
The numbers of foreign tourists estimated by Apavit are higher than those projected by the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism (Mincetur in Spanish), which expects only 452,000 international visitors to arrive this year.
It should be recalled that last year, in the midst of the pandemic, Peru only received 896,523 international tourists, while in 2019 about 4.5 million foreign tourists entered the country. But for the coming years, the ambition of the Apavit is much higher, as they expect to soon reach 10 million tourists annually.
The union representative points out that this optimistic expectation would be possible thanks to the government’s support.
To boost the reactivation of tourism, Apavit asks the Government to eliminate the PCR test for passengers entering Peru and instead include the antigen test, and also lower the VAT on air tickets from 18% to 5%.