Whatever his noble intentions of highlighting the importance of Peru’s indigenous heritage, President Alejandro Toledo’s decision to hold a post-inauguration ceremony at Machu Picchu, the most famous of the strongholds of Inca civilization, certainly sent the wrong message in terms of the country’s tourism strategy.
Toledo’s ceremony may have showed off Peru’s most celebrated site but the goverment’s approach in the last few years has been to try to persuade visitors that there is more to Peru than Machu Picchu.
Tourism is important for Peru. Annual visitor numbers topped a million for the first time in 2000, and the first seven months of last year, the latest period for which figures are available, indicate a repeat of that for 2001. History is still the main attraction. A visitor survey in 2000 by PromPerú, the promotion agency, found that two-thirds of tourists visited an archaeological site. Most of them went to Machu Picchu.
The Commission for the Promotion of Private Investment (COPRI) says tourism generates $1.2 billion annually but the agency knows that Peru is still a long way from fulfilling its potential. It predictis that revenues could be five or 10 times greater if there was sufficient infrastructure investment and “a rational use of resources.” Partly, that means developing a wider variety of sites around the country and spreading tourist wealth to new areas away from the traditional concentrations in the south.
The north of the country is a big focus of efforts, and a campaign is under way to promote development at Playa Hermosa, just outside the northern town of Tumbes. This is a region where the government admits border tensions with Ecuador had long deterred investment. Ex-president Alberto Fujimori signed a peace treaty with Ecuador to resolve the border dispute, subsequently opening the region to development as a tourist destination.
Now the government hopes the area will become a large beach resort with the added attraction of deep-sea sport fishing. None other then Ernest Hemingway is said to have cast his hook there in search of marlin. A group of prospective investors visited in February the deserted six-kilometer seafront stretch that is the proposed site of a complex of hotels aimed at attracting 200,000 visitors a year. Within a few months, the government hopes to award a contract to a consultant to carry out a feasibility study.
Raúl Diez-Canseco, Peru’s first vice-president and the minister of industry and tourism, says a concession for the project should be awarded by the end of the year and that Corporación Andina de Fomento (CAF) had offered financing. The Inter-American Development Bank is to finance reconstruction of the road, water and energy systems and the airport at Tumbes.
Playa Hermosa could eventually be combined into a broader tourist circuit, linking a host of attractions in the north of Peru. Among the draws would be archaeological sites such as Chan Chan and El Brujo, Kuelap in the Amazonas department and Kunturwasi in Cajamarca. There are areas suitable for eco-tourism too.
The Japan International Cooperation Agency and the industry and tourism ministry developed a master plan for this northern tourism region. The plan recommends investments of $3.3 billion in public infrastructure and hotel facilities through 2015, by which time 2.9 million visitors a year would be traveling to the region. This seems ambitious. However, it could provide an important tourist alternative to the southern sites.
Train to the Clouds
In southern Peru, one important investor has been the Orient Express group, which has hotels in Cuzco and at Machu Picchu, as well as in Lima. Orient Express is also the main shareholder in PerúRail, which operates services in the south and southeast of the country. PerúRail offers freight services but also a range of tourist-oriented passenger services, including oxygenated carriages for the train that climbs up to Lake Titicaca, and panoramic viewing cars for the trip through the ‘Sacred Valley’ to Machu Picchu. Passengers in ‘Inca Class’ can get afternoon tea or breakfast service: for the more impecunious there is also backpacker class, with seats upholstered with indigenous fabric designs and extra space for those rucksacks. PerúRail is set to invest $29 million in track improvements from 2000 to 2005.
French group Accor, the world’s third-largest hotel chain, also recently said it would continue to expand in Peru, with six to eight hotel projects in the cities of Chiclayo, Arequipa, Trujillo, Aguas Calientes, Cuzco and Lima. One plan is to offer combined ‘tourist circuits’ with Accor hotels in Ecuador and Colombia.