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Peru Tourism
Lima, with its Spanish colonial architecture, and
Cusco, with
its impressive stonework of pre-Inca and Inca
civilizations,
notably at Machupicchu, are the centers of Peru's ailing
tourism
industry. Lake Titicaca also constitutes a major tourist
attraction. However, as a result of terrorism, insurgency,
common
crime, the 1990-91 cholera epidemic, and the April 1992
coup,
tourism has declined drastically since 1988, when Peru
received
an estimated 320,000 foreign visitors and US$300 million
in
tourism earnings. One American tourist was murdered in
Cusco in
early 1990, and several others died in the late 1980s
because of
sabotage of a train line between Cusco and Machupicchu.
Under
sharply increased taxes on tourism imposed in 1989 in
response to
declining numbers of tourists, foreigners have had to pay
far
more than Peruvians for internal flights and visits to
museums
and archaeological sites. In 1989 six flights a day
shuttled
tourists between Cusco and Lima, but by late 1990 there
were only
two. Tourist arrivals in Peru continued to decline in 1990
and
1991.
According to the National Tourism Board (Cámara
Nacional de
Turismo--Canatur), tourism in the first half of 1992 was
down 30
percent from the first semester of 1991, which, in turn,
fell 70
percent from 1988, tourism's record year. A major blow to
Lima's
hotel business was the SL's car bomb attack in the
exclusive
Miraflores district on July 16, 1992, in which six major
hotels
suffered over US$1 million in damages. The number of
tourists
visiting Cusco and Machupicchu had dropped 76 percent
since 1988.
Data as of September 1992
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