\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t Known on the tourist map for its landscapes, tango, wine, beef and football, Argentina has struggled to cement itself as a destination for international travelers. If anything, it has been losing foreign visitors of late.<\/p>\n
According to Argentina\u2019s statistics institute INDEC, 3,502 foreign tourists visited Argentina in the first four months of 2026. While that was a 6.5% improvement on the same period of 2025, it marked a sharp drop from the same stretches in 2024 (-20.5%) and 2023 (-19.3%).<\/p>\n
Daniel Schteingart, a researcher at the Fundar think tank, told the Herald that \u201cArgentina is one of the few countries in the world that hasn\u2019t managed to grow its tourism exports over the past 15 years.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe rest of the world has kept developing tourism and pulling in foreign visitors, but we\u2019re stuck in place. Countries that used to be behind us, like Colombia, are now ahead,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
What happened? Laura Vernelli, an economist at the consultancy Equilibra, told the Herald that \u201cthe most important relative price for whether foreigners come in or not is the real exchange rate\u201d in other words, the price of the dollar.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe moments when the real exchange rate is cheap are the ones that kill foreign tourism, because it gets very expensive for them to stay and live in Argentina,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She pointed to last year as an example, when \u201cvery few people were coming from abroad on vacation, while a lot of Argentines were vacationing abroad.\u201d<\/p>\n
Schteingart agreed that \u201cthe stretches with an exchange-rate gap and macroeconomic disorder\u201d were a brake on the sector. \u201cIt scares off Europeans and North Americans a bit; it makes life more complicated for them.\u201d<\/p>\n
That said, he noted that those same stretches also pulled in tourists from neighboring countries, \u201cbecause they take advantage of the exchange-rate edge.\u201d In fact, he said, \u201cthe opposite is happening now.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTotal tourism is below 2023 levels, mostly because foreign tourism from the region dropped sharply Argentina is more expensive in dollars but longer-haul tourism is growing, which is a different kind of demand, a bit more premium,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Changes in the sector Roberto Amengual, president of the Tourism Hotel Association (ATH), told the Herald that while \u201cArgentina used to depend heavily on the exchange rate to generate quick demand, for some time now other factors have helped generate a different kind of demand.\u201d<\/p>\n
He pointed to the surge in sporting events and concerts by local and international artists, which has \u201cgenerated a lot of demand in Buenos Aires and the rest of the country,\u201d especially because \u201cinternational concerts don\u2019t go to Chile, Uruguay or Paraguay.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey generate demand from those countries, where tourists from neighboring countries used to come just to shop cheap. That\u2019s not happening as much anymore, but you\u2019re seeing more of the segment that comes to catch an event,\u201d Amengual said.<\/p>\n
He also pointed to the importance of food tourism, since both Mendoza and Buenos Aires are featured in the Michelin Guide. \u201cIt\u2019s a big draw for international tourism. We\u2019re one of the few countries in the region that have it, and we have a high share of Michelin Guide restaurants,\u201d the hotel executive said.<\/p>\n
He also flagged the rise in tourism from Asia. \u201cDemand from Chinese tourism coming into Argentina has doubled in the past year, which requires an adjustment process when it comes to breakfast, service, courtesies and cultural understanding.\u201d<\/p>\n
What can be done? Schteingart stressed that Argentina is \u201camong the five countries with the most climate diversity in the world,\u201d which gives it \u201chuge potential for nature tourism, which is heavily underused.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are incredible places in Argentina with major tourism potential that haven\u2019t been developed yet: from the yungas in Salta and Jujuy, to Catamarca province, the Iber wetlands in Corrientes, the impenetrable Chaco, the Baado La Estrella in Formosa and Patagonia itself can still grow more,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He added that \u201cthere are some policies that should be explored\u201d to encourage tourism routes. For example, \u201cinstead of Aerolneas Argentinas flying Buenos Aires-Punta Cana, which is all outbound tourism, it could push a So Paulo-Ushuaia route.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vernelli was more pessimistic: \u201cThe policies on promotion, restoration, routes and all that do matter, but no matter how good are the city, the wine or the hotels, if it\u2019s too expensive for those people, they\u2019re not going to come.\u201d<\/p>\n
Amengual, for his part, complained that \u201cthe investments are huge and hard to face, because financially they\u2019re very challenging for a normal hotel cash flow.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you have to buy air-conditioning equipment for a 150-room hotel, that\u2019s an entire year of profit,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He also said a \u201ctax reform is clearly needed,\u201d especially in regions near the border, where the exchange-rate gap with other countries hurts competitiveness as in the case of Puerto Iguaz and Foz do Iguau, Brazil.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe tax component in Argentina is almost 70% of the sale, and over there it\u2019s 30%,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Finally, he mentioned the need for \u201csimplification on the operational side when it comes to meeting municipal, provincial and federal requirements,\u201d because \u201cthere are so many overlapping departments between the city and the province that they end up issuing regulations on the same thing and contradicting each other.\u201d<\/p>\n
He gave a concrete example to illustrate the absurdity of the situation: \u201cThere are regulations in this country that ban carpets in hotels.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Known on the tourist map for its landscapes, tango, wine, beef and football, Argentina has struggled to cement itself as a destination for international travelers. If anything, it has been losing foreign visitors of late. According to Argentina\u2019s statistics institute INDEC, 3,502 foreign tourists visited Argentina in the first four months of 2026. While that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":261,"featured_media":70195,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[414,14260],"tags":[595,14259],"class_list":["post-70194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","category-tourism-in-argentina","tag-business","tag-tourism-in-argentina"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/261"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70194\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}