Substituting fossil fuel revenues with tourism in Colombia proves to be a challenging transition

One of the main indicators to know how the tourism sector is doing in Colombia is the behavior of the establishments that provide lodging services. DANE has just published the Monthly Accommodation Survey with information up to April 2023.

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Well, in April 2023 the revenues of the tourism sector in Colombia fell by 9% compared to the same month of 2022. Moreover, the behavior of the first four months of 2023 shows that the sector’s revenues are not growing with the necessary consistency to reach the levels of other economic sectors.

Despite the increase in tourism employment in Colombia, the sector’s revenues continue to decline

The most relevant data in the Monthly Accommodation Survey is the 9% drop in tourism revenues in Colombia in April 2023 with respect to April 2022. This behavior shows a change in trend because in previous months tourism revenues had been growing.

However, while income generated by the sector is falling, employment is increasing. From April 2022 to April 2023, the number of people employed in the tourism sector in Colombia increased by 11.8%, according to the same survey.

On the other hand, the comparison of the first four months (January – April) of 2023 versus the first four months of 2022 shows that employed personnel grew by 14%. However, real income growth was only 4%.

Another indicator that shows that there is no sustained improvement is the hotel occupancy rate. Although the year 2022 closed with better figures than 2021, 2023 started worse than 2022. According to DANE, while in April 2022 the occupancy percentage reached 54.8%, in the same month of 2023 it barely reached 48.9%.

As revenues from tourism in Colombia fell, the national government launched a strategy to boost them

Tourism is one of the key sectors within President Gustavo Petro’s program. In February of this year, during the Vitrina Turística event -organized by the Colombian Association of Travel and Tourism Agencies (Anato)-, the Colombian president said that “in the short term, the possibility of replacing foreign currency from oil and coal has to be placed, in the first place, around tourism”.

However, the performance of the tourism sector has been very similar to that of the economy in general: It does not stand out. Colombia’s GDP grew 3% in the first quarter of 2023 compared to the first quarter of 2022, according to DANE. And the oil sector, which is the one that the national government intends to replace with tourism, grew 3.5% in the comparison with the same quarters, as shown in the most recent Campetrol report.

In order to boost tourism in Colombia, and for its income to grow enough to have the weight of other sectors, on July 10 in San José del Guaviare, the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism launched the strategy called Tourism for a Culture of Peace.

At the event, the Vice Ministry of Tourism explained that four principles guide the new approach to tourism in Colombia.

The first principle of the strategy states that tourism in Colombia must give value to the historical memory of local communities, so that tourism projects are not re-victimizing.

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The second shows that tourism corridors should be created in Colombia in order to integrate consolidated tourist destinations with emerging ones. The third point dictates that tourism should serve to strengthen local economies. The fourth principle establishes that tourism becomes a fundamental tool to comply with the Peace Agreement.

Likewise, the strategy prioritizes territories affected by the conflict, so the focus is on the 80 municipalities of the Territorially Focused Development Program (PDET), on former training and reincorporation spaces, on territories for the substitution of illicit crops and on metropolitan areas transformed by young people through art, as explained by the Vice Ministry of Tourism during the launch of the strategy.

These are the lines of action of Tourism for a Culture of Peace the national government’s strategy

For his part, the advisor to the Vice-Ministry of Tourism, César Oliveros, explained that the strategy has four lines of action:

1. Strengthening tourism territories of peace. The objective is to create a network to showcase the country’s entire tourism offer and, at the same time, provide support to strengthen the governance processes of communities dedicated to tourism. For this line of action, the Government will invest an initial base of 8.2 billion pesos.

2. Economic opportunities. Based on the Colombia Destination of Peace seal mechanism, the Government will promote productive linkages. Productive chaining is understood to mean not only the relationship between all the tourism experiences that exist in the territories, but also all the goods and services produced by these populations that can be linked to the tourism chain.

3. Culture of peace. Construction of historical memory based on the construction of peace, not on the glorification of war.

4. Purposeful tourism promotion. According to Oliveros, it is necessary to change the approach of selling products. What should be sold are the stories and processes behind each good and service. Tell the stories of the communities.

The future of tourism in Colombia: between optimism and skepticism

The Government’s new strategy for tourism in Colombia fills some analysts with optimism, but creates doubts for others.

For John Ramos, Vice Minister of Tourism, the new strategy is positive because “it is a green tourism, a tourism that works with the cultural values of its people”.

The vice minister added that “tourism is one of the activities that most benefits from having a Colombia at peace, not only because it allows the movement of foreign and national visitors through the national territory, but also because it creates opportunities for small businesses to have development opportunities”.

In contrast to the Vice Minister’s statements, the director of the Center for Labor Studies, Enrique Daza, is less optimistic. According to Daza, “the central problem is that tourism development in these territories is subordinated to the achievement of peace, but the end of the conflict in these territories is more delayed than the Government expected”.

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