Chilean President Gabriel Boric presided over a ceremony to reopen Easter Island, also known as Rapa Nui, and resume commercial air service to the island territory.
After two-year closure due to the pandemic, tourism-related economic activity can come back to the island.
“The reactivation of the tourism industry is fundamental to the country’s economic recovery,” Boric said at a ceremony in Santiago’s Plaza de la Constitución next to La Moneda Palace.
“We know that we need to grow and that tourism is also a green industry that employs mostly women, that it is an industry that also promotes culture, so we want to consolidate it,” he added.
After nearly two years of closure due to the pandemic, Rapa Nui – the indigenous name for the archipelago and one of Chile’s main tourist attractions – opened its doors to tourism on Aug. 1.
To date, more than 4,000 passengers have arrived on the Polynesian island, located 3,700 km from the Chilean mainland in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, after tourism was completely halted for 868 days to prevent the spread of Covid.
Local authorities expect the flow of visitors to increase in the coming months of January and February, as the only airline serving the island will increase its weekly flights to meet greater demand during the peak summer season.
According to officials, most of the tourist accommodations on the so-called “Easter Island” are small businesses such as family cottages that will gradually resume their activities, as well as large and medium-sized hotels on the island.
On March 16, 2020, with four confirmed COVID-19 cases and only three ventilators in the local hospital, the island’s municipality decided to close off the area completely, cutting off the only source of income for the nearly 8,000 residents who live almost exclusively from tourism.
Last August, a “white march” was introduced on Rapa Nui for the return of passengers, with strict hygiene rules in place to prevent the silent introduction of the new coronavirus.
Chile is a globally recognized nature and adventure sports country.
Rapa Nui saw a record 151,000 visitors worldwide in 2019, arriving weekly on 14 commercial flights.
Chile’s tourism industry accounts for 6.5 percent of the country’s jobs and contributed 3.3 percent of the gross domestic product in 2019.