The Minister of Tourism, Morena Valdez, reported this week that from January to September of this year, El Salvador received the visits of 1.8 million international tourists, who left the country an estimated $1,800 million in foreign currency.
“El Salvador has been growing in tourism. Yesterday we closed the month of September and we had around 1.8 million visitors, equivalent to 93% of the goal established for this year, which was 1.9 million,” said the official.
In addition, the Minister of Tourism affirmed that the country has exceeded the goals in terms of foreign exchange income, which was estimated at the end of the year at $1,500 million, but as of September the figure reached was more than $1,800 million, equivalent to 15% more than the annual projection.
“The positive results that we are having, especially on the issue of foreign exchange income, which is more than $1.8 billion, are due above all to the issue of security. We highlight this issue because President Bukele totally changed the image of the country from day one of his mandate with the Territorial Control Plan,” added the official.
Likewise, she said that the current months of October, November and December are the months with the highest influx of international visitors that can contribute to the growth of foreign currency figures. “We hope that after this storm, we can recover in our tourism goals and that it does not affect us in our end-of-year goals,” she said.
In this sense, he affirmed that tourism continues with its programmed activities to attract international visitors. That is how, on this day, the president of the WSL (World Surf League), Erik Logan, who yesterday officially announced two world tournaments in the country of surf for next 2023, as well as next November, a tournament of this sport will be held on Las Flores beach, in the east of the country.
Finally, and in the context of the effects on the tourism sector by tropical storm Julia, Morena Valdez stated that “the tourism sector is one of those that, just as it did in the pandemic, is one of the sectors that has recovered and the one that has also generated more and better jobs».
Last Wednesday, government authorities in the fields of tourism and culture estimated that a total of 75,000 visitors were left behind in the national parks of the Salvadoran Tourism Institute (ISTU), the Salvadoran Tourism Corporation (Corsatur), the Ministry of Environment, Environment and Natural Resources (MARN) and the Ministry of Culture, after storm Julia passed through the country.