PERUVIAN TOURISM DECREE: POSSIBLE OVERTOURISM?

Nowadays, with this coronavirus taking over the world, forcing all of us to rethink about our health measures, slow down and remain in our homes until the curve could flatten it's amazing how those popular and crowded tourism destinations can finally have a breath and rest from those everyday visits, one after another. However, it's important to not to let anxiety take over our emotions once we're able to travel.

We're writing this post because of the recent Peruvian Tourism Decree n° 1507 (official link in spanish) issued between yesterday and today, about the measures taken for reactivating tourism in Peru from July, both for national as well as internacional tourists.

As the President says, this executive order was based on the 2018 National Tourist Profile,made by Prom Perú, whose most visited destinations were both urban cities (monuments, historic buildings) and natural reserves, plus the ones who travel more were the kids along with the teachers (making educational trips) as well as, on the other side, families too, that's why the free admission applies first to the children, youth and then the elderly people, adding after all the public servers too.

Then, this order also applies for all international tourists too, as one of the functions of the Ministry of Tourism is to promote the growth of both internal and receptive tourism (also, regarding that despite of the great richnesses this country has we're continuosly having an average of 4 million international visits per year, and having a goal of an increasing up to 7 million per year).

Of course the document also highlights that all of the attractions and sites will have to obey the sanitary protocols given by the Ministry of Health as well as from the World Health Organization.

At the end of the document there's an appendix with a chart containing all of the archeological sites, museums and natural protected areas available for a free admission for only those people mentioned above during the period from July 1st until December 31st of 2020.

Let's also emphasize another important part that is about a possible extent of the free admission for more people, but this fully depends on the decision of the Minister of tourism.

The idea is to balance tourism

There are 55 destinations in total included in the document, all of them located in different parts along the three regions: The Coast, the Andes and the Amazon, so the visitors can not only be stuck at one or two places and stay for 2 weeks in a row, they can also take advantage of the closeness between two of them and go see something totally different but still getting involved in the culture. 

Quinua, Ayacucho

Now, as Machu Picchu is also considered (yeah, obviously, who will forget the greatest wonder of the world, right?) as well as other sites within Cusco, suddenly there are SO many agencies that are creating posts with catchy headlines but leaving out some specifications. They're trying to convince potential travelers to call and book right away by only saying

"Machu Picchu is open from July to December and free to go for national and international tourists!!".

and things like that, so this is kind of creating confusions between all excited travelers whose plans had to be postponed due to the covid-19.

Please, be mindful about a possible overtourism

But we're not saying that you shouldn't go to Machu Picchu, Cusco. In fact, take a conscious advantage of this chance and go see it becaue it's really beautiful and the energy of the ancient inca civilization is awesome. However, don't spend all your time and money only on that, instead, we suggest to try to divide the amount of days you're staying in Peru and, for instance, set a goal of spending two days in Lima, three in Cusco and other three in a totally new place, like the amazon or perhaps the central andes.
So when you're back from your trip you can not only post blogs, pictures and videos about the famous inca ruins, in fact, you can be the only one of your travel community who enjoy a different sight besides it. 

That way, you're contributing to the preservation of the ancient heritage and your future descendants will also have the opportunity to visit the wonderful places as you did ♥

Let's give a try to the stone forest of Cumbemayo, in Cajamarca.

We wanted to bring in this topic because of the kind of "desperation" and "anxiety" accumulated that will come to us once we can be finally out without minimal worries of getting infected, as we wrote on the previous blogpost.

This is our time to develop some empathy for our world, the monuments, natural spaces and also the other travelers who we share likes with ♥

R E M E M B E R   T O   F O L L O W   T R U S T W O R T H Y   S O U R C E S

Thank you for reading, and sharing with the community of travelers around the world.

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Kusikuy Travel Team