Uruguay will have the best tourist season since the pandemic, says deputy minister

The 2022-2023 austral summer tourism season in Uruguay will be better than expected and the largest since the outbreak of the pandemic, assured the country’s Deputy Minister of Tourism, Remo Monzeglio.

“I’ve been in the tourism sector for 45 years and I think this season is going to surprise and be much better than we expected,” Monzeglio told Xinhua in an interview.

As in the rest of the world, the pandemic hit hard and first in areas such as tourism, which has not yet recovered its fullness.

“Since we took office in March 2020, we had normality for practically 11 days. On March 13, 2020, the health emergency was decreed, we went on to have zero tourists and since then we have gradually rebuilt domestic tourism and now international tourism,” reported the vice minister.

Argentina, he pointed out, will continue to be the main issuing market for Uruguay, followed by Brazil, with incidences of 65% and 15%, respectively.

“We expect many tourists from Argentina despite the economic problems and the various exchange rates that that country has. However, people continue to come,” Monzeglio explained.

As for the Brazilians, “probably this year the number will increase a little more, above all because we have worked a lot on the promotion in the south of Brazil.”

Those who come from the western bank of the Río de la Plata mainly have high purchasing power and “in general terms they have no problem with continuing to spend.”

However, returning to pre-March 2020 levels is still a goal, he noted.

“Across the world, reaching pre-pandemic levels today seems very far away,” Monzeglio acknowledged.

Uruguay had conquered in 2017 a “mass tourism, but obviously the world changed”, for example in the levels of air connectivity.

“It is necessary to rebuild that reality little by little,” reflected the deputy minister.

According to a December study by the Ceres study center, tourist activity will report an increase this season, although without being able to repeat the record of 2017, the year in which 3.8 million visitors entered.

“The slow exit from the COVID-19 pandemic, without a doubt, is an obvious reason for the slow recovery of the sector, but the exchange differences between Argentina and Uruguay, as well as the economic crisis of the neighboring country, are the most fundamental explanations,” according to Ceres.

The goal today, indicated Monzeglio, is to bet on the segmentation of the public and on an offer that does not pass only through the Punta del Este resort (140 kilometers east of Montevideo).

“The objective now is segmentation and knowing that there is an audience of that level, but that we also have the rest of the departments of Maldonado (east), Canelones (south), the beaches of Rocha (east), which are an alternative to Punta del Este,” he said.

“Uruguay is not only Punta del Este, which is the emblem, the most iconic place, but in the rest of the departments there are fabulous options,” such as the department of Colonia or the historic Piriápolis resort in Maldonado.

They are “very attractive proposals, where people are looking not so much for ‘glamour’ but for a bit of tranquility and being with the family. There is a beach for each type of family,” he asserted.

If Uruguay can be proud “it is because of the quantity and variety of offer that we have, that is the good thing, the sad thing would be to have a single product that is not going to satisfy everyone,” he concluded.

With information from AméricaEconomia