LIMA, Peru (AP) — Surrounding streets, hotels and restaurants machu picchu ruins Peru’s most famous tourist attraction remained largely deserted on Wednesday, with rail lines to the area suspended amid week-long protests against outsourcing ticket sales to a private company. Service has been canceled.
Small businesses and tourism industry workers are worried that a new ticketing system introduced by the Peruvian government 10 days ago will benefit big companies while hurting them. , their protests have slightly delayed the arrival of tourists.
“It’s like the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. There are very few people,” said Roger Monzon, an employee at the Incas Land Hotel in the Machu Picchu area. There are currently only two tourists from Portugal staying at this hotel.
Rail service to the region was suspended late Friday until further notice, so the few tourists still going, mostly young people, left the Andean city of Cusco by car and drove 210 kilometers (210 kilometers) to the hydroelectric plant. 130 miles). From there they will walk for two hours to reach the Machu Picchu area, where they will take a break. Then you have to walk for two and a half hours to the stone citadel.
The protests, which began on January 24, were in response to the government’s decision to outsource the sale of entrance tickets to the Machu Picchu ruins to Joinus, a virtual ticket sales platform owned by one of Peru’s wealthiest economic groups. It is something.
Previously, tickets to Machu Picchu were handled by the Cusco-based state-owned company’s online portal.
The government says it requires highly transparent ticket sales through the use of private platforms. The unregistered ticket market was discovered in 2023, resulting in a loss of $1.8 million in tickets that were not reported to state authorities.
Tourism stakeholders and small tourism operators say the new system is unreliable and favors large tourism operators, undermining free competition and small business owners.
They claim that there is no legal way to guarantee the confidentiality of the personal data that the Joinus platform obtains from tourists (phone numbers, emails, dates of visit to the citadel). They fear that information will be forwarded to large travel companies, which will be able to offer travelers accommodations, meals and transportation in advance, giving them an advantage over smaller companies.
Demonstrators are calling for the new system to be halted and for the resignation of Culture Minister Leslie Urteaga, who approved the ticketing changes.
The United States, Germany, France and Brazil are planning visits to Machu Picchu, which has been a World Heritage Site since 1983, citing potential shortages of water and other necessities due to transportation disruptions. The public was advised to be careful in such cases.
Tourism is the main economic activity in Cusco, with more than 200,000 people directly employed in this sector. In the pre-protest era, up to 4,500 visitors entered Machu Picchu each day.
There are no official figures on potential losses for the first week of protests, but some tourism unions estimate the damage at around $4.7 million.
“The losses include not only all sectors directly related to tourism, such as tourist agencies, hotels, restaurants and tour guides, but also markets, taxi drivers and the peasant community,” said Elena González of the Cusco Association of Tourist Agents. the chairman said.
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