Galapagos received last year more national tourists than foreigners. Visitor inflows are 50% of pre-pandemic levels

National tourists drove an important part of the economic reactivation of the Galapagos Islands during 2021. 60% of the visitors who arrived in the Archipelago last year were nationals compared to 40% represented by foreigners.

With a pandemic that still has changing rules in some countries from which part of the foreigners come, Galapagos has not yet managed to recover the volumes of foreigners that it received before the pandemic.

And in this context, the “economic reactivation was based mainly on the national market,” according to the tourism sector of the islands. Before the pandemic, although national tourism had been growing, the arrival of foreigners was greater.

During 2021, a total of 136,336 tourists entered the islands, of which 82,090 were nationals and 54,246 were foreigners, according to figures handled by the Galapagos Chamber of Tourism, with data from the Galapagos National Park.

The entry of tourists last year represents an increase of 88% compared to 2020, the year in which the pandemic began. However, although this already represents a recovery, it is still far from the levels of 2019.

Compared to the 271,238 visitors who entered Galapagos in 2019, the figure for 2021 means only 50.26%.

June and December were the months with the highest presence of foreign tourists, mostly from the US. There was a sustained growth trend with a reduction in September, a month that has regularly been weak.

Andrés Ordóñez, executive director of the Galapagos Chamber of Tourism, explained that, despite the fact that Ecuador opened to tourism early, several factors have had an impact so that it does not reach the levels of 2019.

“One of those factors is the variations of the restrictions of the travel policies of the issuing countries. Travel restrictions in Europe have affected the arrival of tourists,” Ordóñez said.

The leader indicated that, of the total number of foreigners who arrived in Galapagos last year, almost 90% came from the United States and only 10% were Europeans.

Ordóñez indicated that it is expected that in the second semester there will be a rebound in tourists. “We hope that this year there will be an increase in international tourists and that the number of nationals will remain the same or increase,” he said.

For the tourism sector, if the second semester goes well, in 2023 the tourist items that were managed before the pandemic could be recovered.

The outbreaks of the omicron variant impacted the arrival of tourists in these first weeks of January.

One of the things that is worrying at the moment is that the United States placed Ecuador, like other countries, on alert 4 in its travel advisories. This implies that it advises its citizens not to travel to the South American destination.

The main reason for this new classification is COVID-19. According to the warning, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued the health advisory due to a very high level of the disease in Ecuador.

Ordóñez recognized that these travel alerts are considered by tourists before traveling. For him, the issue of concern is the perception of insecurity in the country, since at the health level the contagion rates are decreasing. They hope that the alert will be reconsidered.

More flights to the islands

This year, the number of flights to Galapagos has increased, especially to Baltra Island, the airport where most visitors arrive.

The entry of the Equair airline allowed the number of seats available to that destination to be increased. The national flag carrier tries to occupy the space left by Tame, which handled a significant number of frequencies to that destination.

With the beginning of its operation, four airlines have operations in the Galapagos: Latam, Avianca, Aeroregional and Equair. These last two received part of the frequencies that Tame had in the Archipelago.

During the last weeks, the Galapagos destination has had days with up to eight daily flights.

Airline executives hope that this year there will be a recovery in seat occupancy at that destination.

Requirements to enter the islands

– All passengers over 16 years of age must present the COVID-19 vaccination card with at least fourteen days of validity after completing the scheme and the negative result of the real-time RT-PCR qualitative test carried out up to 72 hours. before embarkation to the Galapagos Islands.

– Children between 2 and 16 years old must present the negative result of a qualitative real-time RT-PCR test carried out up to 72 hours before boarding the Galapagos.

– National and foreign tourists must present the transit control card issued by the Government Council of the Galapagos Special Regime.(I)