Chile: Committee of Ministers of Tourism approves National Sustainable Tourism Plan 2024-2026

04-05-24

In the first meeting of the year of the Committee of Ministers for Tourism, a key instance for the analysis and approval of the various initiatives related to tourism, the ministers of Agriculture, Environment, Public Works, Culture, Arts and Heritage, National Assets and Housing and Urbanism were informed and approved the content of the National Sustainable Tourism Plan 2024-2026.

The initiative aims to recover international tourist flows and boost domestic tourism demand, strengthening the resilience of the sector and its workforce, increasing the average expenditure per traveler and the sustainable management of destinations. This work is planned within the framework of the relevance that each territory defines for its development, based on its own views and aspirations for economic and social development.

The Minister of Economy, Nicolás Grau, pointed out that “this is a fundamental step that requires inter-ministerial coordination, so that each of the ministries, when designing its different policies, has the tourism perspective at the center of those decisions. This is relevant in what happens in the territories, in terms of infrastructure, the coordination between the ecological perspective, education and how this can be a tourist attraction. It is also relevant in the relationship between culture and tourism. All this shows how tourism must be part of diverse conversations and this requires an inter-ministerial articulation”.

The Undersecretary of Tourism, Verónica Pardo Lagos, said that “this is a great step forward for the country and, mainly, for all those who work in the tourism industry. We want Chile to be a world reference in sustainable tourism and for the sector to consolidate itself as a strategic economic activity for our country. The support of all the ministers of the Committee is fundamental to continue the work in this area, which also allows us to shape the proposals collected throughout the country and in a participatory manner”.

The National Sustainable Tourism Plan 2024-2026 corresponds to the dynamization phase of the National Sustainable Tourism Strategy and is structured in three focuses: tourism as a strategic activity, the dynamization of the work and business environment and the enabling conditions for tourism. It also considers nine lines of action and more than 50 initiatives.

Cristóbal Benítez, national director of Sernatur, valued the approvals and emphasized that “they are very important because of the articulation spaces and the willingness of all the ministries to work with a tourism perspective in each one of them. As an additional challenge, there is the need to incorporate into the tourism promotion all the cultural, heritage and environmental offerings that the ministries raise, especially for the domestic market. From Sernatur and our site Chile es Tuyo, we are working specifically for this, especially in the construction of the new national marketing plan”.

National Strategy for Sustainable Tourism

At the meeting, the Undersecretary of Tourism presented the background of the National Strategy for Sustainable Tourism to the year 2035, a document that was built after the Committee of Ministers approved its implementation in August 2022.

The National Strategy for Sustainable Tourism, which is part of the government program of President Gabriel Boric Font, will be the road map for the sector for the next 10 years. In its construction stage, close to 2,300 people participated in the 16 regions of the country and it contemplated phases of dynamization, consolidation and acceleration. The strategy will be launched soon, where the details of the work that was carried out in a decentralized and participatory manner will be disclosed.