Why should we visit La Serena?

La Serena offers a truly unmatched experience in Chile. Here, the richness of a historic city center with a distinct identity blends seamlessly with an extensive and vibrant coastline, a gastronomy that celebrates local flavors, a privileged connection to the astronomy of the Elqui Valley, and a quality of life that can be felt from the very first moment. We are a welcoming, luminous, and hospitable city, where a single day can unfold between the serenity of the sea, the depth of our heritage, and the fascination of science, culture, and nature.

Today, visiting La Serena means discovering a city in transformation — one that has moved beyond fragmented development to consolidate itself as a new-generation destination: competitive, sustainable, and deeply human. We are currently investing in a portfolio of 59 projects exceeding USD 55 million, many of them designed to further enhance this unique visitor experience.

What is your vision for tourism development in La Serena over the coming years, considering sustainability, diversification, and competitive positioning against national and international destinations?

Our vision is for La Serena to establish itself as a world-class destination with its own distinctive identity — capable of competing not by imitation, but by enhancing what makes us truly unique. This identity is built upon five fundamental pillars: our historical heritage, our coastal landscape, local gastronomy, scientific and astronomical tourism, and a city that prioritizes planning and quality of life.

In the coming years, we will continue diversifying our tourism offering by strengthening heritage, cultural, gastronomic, coastal, scientific, astronomical, and meetings-related tourism products. Sustainability is a cross-cutting principle for us — not merely a slogan, but an active strategy aimed at protecting our natural spaces, raising standards, and ensuring a balanced relationship between visitors and residents.

Finally, we aim to strengthen La Serena’s competitive positioning through the development of a coherent destination brand and a promotional agenda that projects the city across Chile and South America as an authentic, safe, beautiful, and opportunity-ready destination.

How do you plan to strengthen the tourism identity of La Serena by highlighting its historical heritage, architecture, culture, and natural environment as differentiating elements from other destinations in northern Chile?

The identity of La Serena is not merely decorative; it is our main strategic asset. For this reason, we seek to strengthen a tourism proposal that places at its core our historic downtown, Serenense architecture, the El Faro Monumental, Avenida del Mar, local culture, gastronomy, coastal nature, and our connection with academic and scientific institutions.

Our work focuses on ensuring that these attributes are not presented in isolation, but rather as part of a coherent destination narrative: a heritage city by the sea, with a deep cultural vocation, a scientific perspective, and a distinctive urban quality of life. This identity will be reinforced through strategic promotion, the restoration of emblematic spaces, cultural activation, the creation of integrated tourism circuits, and a destination brand capable of translating our essence into a recognizable and highly competitive proposal both in northern Chile and internationally.

What role does public-private collaboration play in your tourism strategy, and how are you encouraging investment in new hotel, gastronomic, and innovative tourism projects within the municipality?

Public-private collaboration is essential; no world-class destination can be built in isolation. For this reason, we are establishing the Municipal Tourism Council as a permanent platform for governance, coordination, and prioritization, where the municipality, private sector, academia, public services, security institutions, and territorial stakeholders can work together under a shared agenda.

This space enables us to organize priorities, accelerate coordination, and create better conditions for investment. Furthermore, through the La Serena 2030 vision, we are promoting a new alliance between the municipality, industry associations, and academia in order to move from diagnosis to execution.

From the municipal administration, we are actively promoting project portfolios and urban recovery initiatives that improve the environment for new tourism, gastronomy, and service developments. Our message to the private sector is clear: we seek investment driven by identity, innovation, and sustainability — investment capable of generating economic, urban, and social value for the city.

How is sustainable tourism development being addressed, particularly regarding the protection of beaches, wetlands, and natural areas, while ensuring a balance between tourism growth and environmental conservation?

For us, sustainable tourism is a very concrete concept: growing responsibly. It is not simply about attracting more visitors, but about doing so while protecting our coastline, ecosystems, public spaces, and the quality of life of our residents. This requires tourism development grounded in planning, territorial management, heritage protection, and climate change adaptation.

In practice, this translates into implementing higher standards for tourism land use, strengthening local capacities, promoting sustainability and service quality, improving institutional coordination, and adopting an urban vision that prioritizes the recovery of public spaces, the protection of the coastal environment, and a more responsible relationship with our natural assets.

We want La Serena’s tourism growth to become an example of balance: a city that welcomes more visitors while simultaneously protecting and valuing the elements that make it unique and deeply cherished.

What initiatives are being proposed to strengthen cultural and events tourism in La Serena, including professional events, festivals, fairs, and activities that attract visitors during the low season and strengthen the local economy?

We see an extraordinary opportunity in this area. The La Serena Festival — which we aim to relaunch in 2027 — is not only a cultural event, but also a strategic platform for destination positioning, with strong potential for binational integration, media visibility, longer visitor stays, and increased tourism spending.

In addition, we will establish an international MICE tourism seminar and a robust calendar of national and international events. Our vision is that culture, professional gatherings, fairs, and festivals should become a true city activation policy. This will help energize the local economy, create opportunities for entrepreneurs, showcase Serenense talent, and generate new reasons to visit the municipality outside the peak season.

The restoration of 26 façades in the historic center, intensive street-cleaning initiatives, and investments in sustainable gardens are also contributing to creating a more attractive urban environment for these events and activities.

Regarding international tourism, what actions are being taken to position La Serena in foreign markets and improve its visibility as an attractive destination within South America?

We are working to project La Serena with a clearer and more competitive voice across the South American landscape. We are leading a strategy focused on promotion, destination branding, and both national and international positioning. This vision is complemented by targeted campaigns, participation in international tourism fairs, digital marketing initiatives, and the development of flagship events capable of attracting international audiences.

We are also pursuing UNESCO Creative City recognition in gastronomy, establishing cooperation agreements with major cities around the world, and developing internationalization projects for our destination. Our objective is to attract visitors from Argentina, Brazil, Europe, North America, and Japan throughout the entire year.

Ultimately, we want La Serena to become the first destination that comes to mind when travelers think of a South American coastal city that combines heritage, gastronomy, and science.

From an urban planning perspective, how is La Serena preparing to accommodate a potential significant increase in tourists without affecting the quality of life of its residents?

That question is fundamental, because the tourism future of La Serena will only be successful if it also improves the quality of life of its residents. In this regard, La Serena 2030 is very clear: the city must grow through planning, better infrastructure, efficient connectivity, an organized coastal front, heritage protection, and climate adaptation.

In practical terms, this means improving the management of visitor flows, investing in public spaces, restoring parks, strengthening public safety through initiatives such as the unique emergency number 1457 and municipal security offices, resolving connectivity bottlenecks, and planning tourism with a comprehensive territorial perspective.

What do you consider to be the main challenges facing La Serena in consolidating itself as a leading tourism destination, and what priorities has your administration defined to overcome them in the medium term?

The challenges are well known, and we are determined to address them with both realism and enthusiasm. Among the most important are tourism seasonality, the need for stronger institutional coordination, tourism security — which we are addressing through 360-degree surveillance cameras and license plate recognition systems — as well as the strengthening of infrastructure and connectivity, the activation of a solid destination brand, and the challenge of transforming our comparative advantages into better-articulated tourism products.

To address these issues, our medium-term priorities are very concrete: establishing and launching the Municipal Tourism Council, validating a strategic agenda for 2026–2030, updating our tourism planning framework, activating the destination brand, promoting emblematic projects such as the La Serena Festival, the Gastronomic Route, scientific tourism, and MICE tourism, while also strengthening tourism training, quality standards, and tourism intelligence systems.