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Pablo Moll, Turismo Chile

In the aftermath of February’s earthquake attention has focused on the cost of reconstruction, but the earthquake is also taking its toll on other areas of the economy including tourism.

Chile’s tourism industry brings in around US$ 2 billion a year and attracted over 2 million visitors in 2008 thanks to global campaigns featuring images of wineries, beaches and the country’s pristine natural attractions.

However, the 2008/09 global economic crisis, and now the earthquake, is keeping tourists away in droves. To bring them back, Chile needs to get the word out that the earthquake has left many parts of the country, including the top tourist attractions of San Pedro de Atacama in the north and Torres del Paine in the south, completely untouched.

Reassuring tourists requires more international media coverage and more investment in promoting Chile abroad, says Pablo Moll, CEO of Chilean nonprofit tourism promotion organization Turismo Chile. Moll spoke to bUSiness CHILE about the impact of the earthquake on tourism and what the industry is doing to reverse it.

How was 2010 shaping up for tourism before the earthquake struck?

Chile has had a couple of poor years. First we had the financial crisis and then the human influenza AH1N1 outbreak and then, when we thought our bad luck was finally over, the earthquake struck.

If we really want to see how Chile was doing before these external factors came into play, we should start a little earlier. Chile was doing very well in 2008. Both the number of tourists entering the country and the amount they were spending was growing at around 13% annually. We were very happy with that and, if it was not for the earthquake, we would have continued with this growth and perhaps improved on it.

Visitor numbers fell around 20% in the wake of the economic crisis and the human influenza outbreak. People with money decided to cut their expenditure but they will return. In the case of human influenza, Brazil was the main country affected because a minister said “I recommend that you don’t travel to Argentina or Chile” and this put the brakes on everything.

And after the quake?

The images of the earthquake went around the world and the number of visitors has fallen. Collective fear is very dangerous. The number of visitors fell by as much as 30% to 40% from one day to another and we are still trying to recover.

Which tourist destinations have suffered as a result of the earthquake?

International tourism is focused on San Pedro de Atacama, Torres del Paine, Villarica, Puerto Varas, none of which were really affected. The Argentines [who account for more than a third of Chile’s foreign visitors] prefer Arica, Iquique and Antofagasta, which were untouched. Nor did anything happen in Vina del Mar or Valparaiso.

The most affected area was Colchagua, especially historic heritage sites where many buildings made of adobe collapsed. It is going to be expensive to rebuild them. But the important thing is that the wine festivals went ahead, even though it was said at one point that they would not. This shows that a disaster like this may knock us over but we are able to get on our feet again. It’s happened again and again in our history.

What are you doing to reverse the fall in visitor numbers?

Our main task is to communicate and inform the world that Chile can withstand this type of earthquake. It’s very difficult for public opinion around the world to imagine that Chile is in the state it is after one of the five strongest earthquakes on record.

We are also encouraging press coverage by bringing lots of journalists as well as major international tour operators here. You can tell them what you like but it’s something else bringing them here. Then they realize that although there was an earthquake in Concepción, the major international tourist destinations are intact, the hotels are operating 100%, the airport is fully operational and so are Santiago, Valparaiso and Vina del Mar.

The message is that Chile is prepared for something like this; we are not talking about Haiti.

We had the USTA (the U.S. Tour Operators Association) with some journalists here two weeks ago and they were blown away. They have gone back to the U.S. with a very different message. In the blogs and articles they published, they explain how they had to look for evidence of the earthquake because it is not obvious at first sight.

How much does Chile spend on promoting itself abroad?

We are at a disadvantage to Argentina and Peru, who are our competitors, and even more so compared with Australia and New Zealand. While Argentina spends US$ 30 million a year (on tourism promotion) and Peru US$25 million, Chile still invests little on promoting itself abroad.

Our budget last year was US$ 5 million from the state, and about the same amount from the private sector, which means a total of US$ 10 million. This year we will invest 25% less since our budget has been cut due to the earthquake.

What does the future hold for Chile's tourism industry?

Even in bad years, tourism brings in more than US$2 billion into the country, without chopping down a tree, digging up the land or polluting a lake.

Chile is becoming more well-known internationally and it has implemented some good policies in this area. Today we have a tourism law, new institutions and there will be an inter-ministerial tourism committee, including the ministers of public works, economy and the environment, which will give tourism greater importance in the economy.

Given that the earthquake is the state’s top priority, these things have been put on the backburner. But once the immediate emergency is over, and I think we are getting there, things will begin to move. The inter-ministerial tourism committee has yet to meet and the deputy minister for tourism has to be named, but things will begin to operate normally soon.

At Turismo Chile, we are working with the press, bringing tour operators here and communicating as best we can that Chile is back to normal. Once we know our budget for 2011, we hope to have the funds for a powerful international campaign with advertising, trade fairs and workshops.

Tom Azzopardi is a freelance journalist based in Santiago