September 26 |

The momentum of the Salvadoran waves was the beginning of an unprecedented tourism takeoff in the history of El Salvador, which was consolidated at the close of 2022 with more than 2.5 million international visitor arrivals, a figure that even surpassed the dynamics that the country maintained in 2019 before the COVID- 19 pandemic.

The country’s good performance attributed to the Surf City anchor strategy, international positioning actions, the potential of tourist destinations, the positive figure of President Nayib Bukele in the world, and state security strategies implemented through the Territorial Control Plan (PTC) were reflected in the latest measurement of the World Tourism Barometer of the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO).

The projection of international visitors by the end of 2023 is 2.9 million. Photo: El Salvador Newspaper.
The measurement reflected that El Salvador is the fourth nation in the world with the best performance in the growth of international tourist arrivals with 32% until July 2023, compared to what it registered in the same period of 2019.

The country is only behind the dynamics reflected by nations such as Qatar, which reports an increase of 95 %; Saudi Arabia with 58 %; and Albania with 56 %, when compared to its pre-pandemic metrics.

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In this order, El Salvador also becomes the country with the best performance in the American continent and the Western Hemisphere surpassing important destinations and countries of tourist tradition, noted President Bukele through the social network X, formerly Twitter.

“El Salvador is the fourth country with the highest tourism growth in the world and the destination that has grown the most in the entire Western Hemisphere,” the president celebrated.

The new security conditions have been an incentive to attract more foreigners to visit El Salvador. Photo: El Salvador Newspaper.
The list also highlights the performance of Andorra whose reception of international tourists increased by 31%; Armenia with 30%; Ethiopia with 28%; Colombia and Jordan with 23%; U.S. Virgin Islands with 22%; Tanzania and Liechtenstein with 19%; Curacao with 18%; while Honduras and Dominican Republic grew by 17%.

The barometer highlights that international tourism has continued to recover from the worst crisis in its history, as overall international tourist arrivals reached 84 % of pre-pandemic levels between January and July this year.

“By the end of July, international tourist arrivals reached 84% of pre-pandemic levels and 700 million tourists traveled internationally between January and July 2023, up 43% from the same months in 2022,” UNWTO noted.

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At the beginning of this year, Mitur estimated that by 2023 more than 2.9 million foreign visitors would enter the national territory, however, data closed up to August account for more than 2.2 million arrivals, and a greater boom is expected with events such as: the Miss Universe pageant, scheduled for November; and two surfing championships in the months of September and November, among other activities.

“According to our projections we are not going to have any low season month, but rather visitors are going to keep coming thanks to surf tournaments, business events and the Miss Universe that is scheduled for the end of the year”, commented the Minister of Tourism, Morena Valdez, recently.

Meanwhile, the foreign exchange projection for the end of the year is $2.9 billion, and up to August the registered spill over was $2.1 billion in tourism dynamics.