Selling Peru’s thousand year-old culture
INVESTMENT IS NEEDED TO MAKE ONE OF LATIN AMERICA'S MOST NATURALLY AND CULTURALLY DIVERSE COUNTRIES MORE TOURIST-FRIENDLY

Thanks mainly to the Incas and their knack for building to last, Peru has always been entitled to its pin on the world map of tourist destinations. In fact, visitor numbers had been growing steadily by over 20% annually since the terrorism problem was brought under control in the mid-1990s, and were approaching 600,000 in 2000 until political unrest led to cancellations (particularly by Japanese visitors), and slashed growth to half of what had been expected, to 8.3% for the year.
A simple recovery would bring Peru an estimated $1 billion in revenue, just over 4% of overall GDP. But President Toledo says he intends to significantly increase the number of visitors by the time his term is up in 2006. He has set up a new ministerial-level entity, the National Tourism Council, and proposed to exempt foreign tourists from the 18% sales tax on their bills for food and lodging, and possibly internal transportation outlays as well.

Why the special emphasis on tourism? The government is aware that its components favor his larger social goals as it brings in foreign currency, and creates direct and indirect employment at all skill levels. More importantly, tourism turns transportation infrastructure deficiencies into immediate priorities and exerts a powerful decentralizing force on the economy. In Peru, moving economic activity away from the big urban centers and into the hinterland is a big political issue, not least of all for the president, whose childhood was spent in the countryside.

F. Ramiro Salas Bravo Deputy Minister for Tourism

“Tourism is a barometer of any given country’s political and economic stability,” says Vice-President Raul Diez Canseco, who also holds the Commerce, Tourism and Industry cabinet portfolio. Air links, especially from the United States, are still a major problem, though Lima airport was recently put under private management in a bid to get it modernized. Road links through so mountainous a country are major headaches.
Large-scale investment in infrastructure will therefore have to go hand-in-hand with promotion and diversification of the offer if the presidential goal is to be met, notes the Deputy Minister for Tourism, Ramiro Salas Bravo. “You can have the prettiest spot in the whole world, but it won’t do you a bit of good if there’s no way of getting there.” Mr. Salas believes Peru needs to emphasize the multiplicity of its attractions: wildlife, nature and eco-tourism, the Amazonian rainforest, mountaineering and extreme adventure sports, an incredibly rich indigenous culture. Offer visitors a little bit of everything, and it could go a long way, in his view.

Maria del Rocío Vesga Secretary-General of PromPeru

And, of course, you have Peru’s archaeological heritage, which is more than just Cuzco and Machu Picchu. The ruins at Kuleap, deep in the northeastern jungle, are no less magnificent for being seldom seen. Mr. Salas comments: “think of Egypt and you think of the pyramids but the pyramids aren’t Egypt. By the same token, there’s much more to Peru. It’s a series of cascading cultures and civilizations, from the Nazca and Paracas that pre-date the Incas, to their modern day Quechua-speaking descendants.”
PromPeru is the agency tasked with promoting the country in order to attract investment in tourism, while carrying out market surveys that will help to orientate policymaking in both areas. Its secretary-general, Maria del Rocío Vesga, agrees with Mr. Salas. “All our research indicates Peru is perceived as a historical-cultural destination. Not for its beaches, not for eco-tourism, not for adventure trekking or new-age mysticism. What makes us different from Mexico or Egypt is that here, the past is not past. We see our only real competition from Guatemala, where they have developed this idea very intelligently, we want to position Peru as another place where a vibrant and colorful 1,000-year-old culture is still very much a way of life.”