Skift Travel News Blog

Political unrest continues to unravel tourism recovery in Peru. Tour operators were forced to evacuate tourists and halt tours to Machu Picchu over the weekend due to ongoing violent protests and widespread service disruptions.

Both Machu Picchu and the Inca Trail hike to the famous site have been closed indefinitely.

Hundreds of tourists were left stranded over the weekend as tensions escalated. Both Intrepid Travel and G Adventures confirmed to Skift they would cancel trips until 5 February, due to the ongoing political instability.

Skift previously reported how the South American country has been grappling with reactions to a destructive self-coup attempt by its impeached President Pedro Castillo.

Gary Cohen, Intrepid’s managing director for Latin America, said the company had safely evacuated one group to hotel accommodation in Cusco and plans are being put in place to rebook or refunded affected trips.

All G Adventures itineraries for travelers on the ground in Peru were being re-routed, according to its statement.

At this point, it remains unclear when tourism would return to normal as a state of emergency has been extended, affecting airport closures and overall travel to the country.

This chart below from the United States National Travel and Tourism Office came out this week, and two countries are standout in an otherwise dismal-but-improving 2021 inbound travel market. Colombia is emerging as a force to be reckoned with, as we wrote in detail last month.

Source: U.S. Department of Commerce/ITA/I&A/National Travel and Tourism Office (NTTO)/ADIS/I-94 Program

And the numbers bear that: visitors from Colombia to U.S. were up almost 13 percent from pre-covid 2019 and crossed the one million mark, a huge feat in itself. Peru was the other country, with 22 percent more visitors in 2021 compared to 2019. Shows the growing power of LatAm countries and will make up for some lost tourism business from the likes of increasingly isolationist China, for instance.