Central America's Tourism Industry Growing, Tourism Ministers Confirm
San Ramón, was the scene for a meeting of the Central American tourism ministers, who discussed the growth in tourism to Central America in 2005.

Carlos Benavides, Mministro de Turismo de Costa Rica, was host to the meeting that includes actor and singer, Rubén Blades, who is Panama's tourism minister; María Nelly Rivas from Nicaragua; Ricardo Martínez from Honduras; Elena de Rivera, representing El Salvador; and Willi Kaltschmitt from Guatemala.

Tourism to Central America has grown on average 11%, which brought a 25% income for 2005, thanks to the 147% growth of European tourists to the region.

Minister Blades pointed out that the growth of Europeans tourists to the region has been more than what had been anticipated.

In real numbers, 430.000 European visitors came to the region in 2002. Last year (2005), that figure grew to 1.179.000.

In total, tourism to the Central America in 2005 generated some us$5 billion dollars in revenue, one billion more than the year before.

Costa Rica's Benavides added that the European countries with the largest number of visitors are from Spain, France, England, Italy and Germany.

Benavides says the success is based on the cultural identity, especially with the Spaniards and Italians, and the high spending capacity of the Europeans.

The Costa Rican minister added that success is based on the promotion of Agencia Turística de Centroamérica, based in Madrid, Spain, who have been heavily promoting the region.

Rubén Blades will hand over to Benavides the presidency "pro tempore" of the Consejo Centroamericano Turismo, with the challenge to strengthen the image of the region to the European market as a "multi destination" market.

The Panamanian tourism minister said that the region has to continue to explore its own rich culture as a magnet to the Europeans and Asians, and not to forget the Central Americans as well.

"As a region, Central America offers much more than other regions in the world: it has history, culture and the first to discover that should be us", said minister Blades.

For her part, Nicaragua's tourism minister Rivas, assured that her country that the tourism industry is a struggling but growing activity. Minister Rivas said that Nicaragua received 700.000 visitors last year.

The Honduran tourism minister was quoted as saying that his country has seen a 10% increase in tourism over the previous year, become the third largest industry in that country. Guatemala's tourism minister indicated that to increase the flow of tourists to his country, they renovating the airports, reinforcing security and promoting more the country as a destination point for conventions and events.

El Salvador's tourism minister said that her country has experienced a 21% annual growth in tourism over the last 10 years and now represents 3.7% of the country's Gross National Product.