(15 Feb 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Viña del Mar, Chile – 30 January 2025
1. Wide of tourists on beach
2. Tourists in sea
3. Various of Argentine tourist Cristian Vasquez with relatives on beach
4. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Cristian Vasquez, Argentine tourist: ++STARTS ON PREVIOUS SHOT++
“We rent an apartment for many people, which by splitting everything ends up costing us 95 dollars per day and on the Argentine coast it costs at least three times as much.”
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – 24 January 2025
5. Various of Arpoador beach during sunset
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – 27 January 2025
6. Lentini Nicolas, wearing an Argentine national football jersey, and his family walking by beach
7. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Nicolás Lentini, 37 years old, Argentine tourist:
“One week in Argentina, for four people, you pay a 700 USD rent and here, in Buzios, I rented for two weeks at the same price.”
8. Group of tourists on beach
9. People enjoying Copacabana beach
STORYLINE:
On a recent hot summer day in Chile, the beaches of Viña del Mar, Concón and Reñaca are packed with holidaymakers playing ball and sharing yerba mate tea.
They are part of a wave of Argentines who have found Chile to be a budget-friendly paradise this southern summer.
“On the Argentine coast it costs at least three times as much,” said Cristian Vázquez, who was enjoying the sea in Reñaca, on Chile’s central coast.
In December 2024, the start of the Southern Hemisphere’s summer, more Argentines went on vacation abroad than in the previous year, with Chile, Brazil, and Uruguay as the top destinations.
Despite a year of economic crisis, Argentines are flocking to beaches, mountains and shopping centers abroad, encouraged by a favorable economic outlook — and a strong peso.
Between December 2023 and the same month in 2024 the Argentine peso appreciated by around 41% against the official U.S. dollar, thanks in part of a strong adjustment plan implemented by President Javier Milei, an ultra-liberal who came to power at the end of 2023 on vows to “blow up” the central bank, take an axe to the bloated government and kill sky-high inflation.
Argentine tourism abroad surged in December, with departures up 76.4% year-over-year to 1.3 million travelers compared to the same month the previous year, according to official figures.
Of those, 80.7% visited neighboring countries, primarily Chile (28%), Brazil (22.6%) and Uruguay (15.6%).
Chile has become a popular destination for Argentines, who made up 40% of the 5.2 million visitors to the country in 2024 and early 2025.
Chile’s strong economic position relative to Argentina has resulted in competitive prices, a major draw for Argentine tourists.
Chile’s tourism undersecretary, Verónica Pardo, noted that visitors are also spending more than in previous years, averaging about $63.3 per person per day.
“2024 is the year that tourism returned to Chile,” she said.
Argentine visitors aren’t confined to the sun-drenched beaches of the Chilean coast.
Nicolás Lentini, 37, recently arrived in Brazil, drawn by the devalued real and lower prices.
“A week’s rent for four people in Argentina costs $700," he said, noting that he paid the same amount for 14 days in Búzios, a Brazilian resort east of Rio de Janeiro.
Brazil experienced a surge in tourism after the real depreciated by around 27% in 2024, when it reached a record of 6.6 million foreign arrivals, with Argentines being the main visitors (1.9 million).
AP video by Mauricio Cuevas, Mario Lobao
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