MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Foreign tourism in Chile increased 9% in summer months

Over 640,000 foreign tourists visited Chile this summer contributing more than 345 million US dollars to the economy, reported Chile's state tourism office — SERNATUR- last week.

The preferred destinations of these foreigners were Santiago and Valparaíso, where 60% of summertime occupancy involved foreign visitors. Tourists from Germany and England were up 30% and 19%, respectively. Even so, Argentina still supplies the greatest number of foreign tourists and, in January, 23% of all those visiting from other countries were Argentine. The World Economic Forum on March 1 named Chile as the third most popular tourist market in South America, following Barbados and Costa Rica. One survey found that 65% of those traveling to Chile from abroad during the past two months came as vacationers. The Santiago Times