Peru on the comeback trail
Machu Picchu is once again full of tourists, with travel rebounding from a stoppage caused by political unrest that erupted just as the country was recovering from the pandemic-era slowdown.
I didn’t mind having to make my way through layers of tourists, crowding tiered ledges almost 8,000 feet above sea level. It only made the eventual reveal that much more effective.
Whether it was bigger or smaller than I had imagined, or just like the photos in the countless history books, National Geographic programs and postcards I had seen over the years, didn’t matter.
It was Machu Picchu, the cradle of Incan spirituality and crown jewel of Peru, and I was there — with a lot of other people.
By the time I made my visit to Peru in late September, tourism was booming. The daily visitor allowance for the site had returned to 4,044, its usual amount. Workers, security guards and groundskeepers were out in full force making their rounds to protect and preserve the site.
Tourists from all over the world were buzzing throughout the Incan citadel, with cameras poised, selfie sticks drawn and smiles at the ready on what was a gorgeous sunny day.
It was hard to imagine no one here. But months earlier, from late January through February, that was the case: Nobody was at Machu Picchu because the site was closed as a result the civil unrest that followed political turmoil in late 2022. By March, Machu Picchu had reopened, and while it took several months for tourism numbers to bounce back, they eventually did in the fall.
“The rebound really started as guests traveled in September and October and is continuing into 2024,” said Scott Avera, president of Alexander + Roberts. “It’s a steady climb, though, not the rush as we saw with Japan,” he said, referring to when the latter reopened in 2022.
Bookings for 2024 travel to Peru are up 41% year-overyear for Alexander + Roberts, putting the company well ahead of where it was in 2022, when it was bouncing back from Covid.
Intrepid’s bookings to Peru in the spring of 2023 were also slow to rebound following Machu Picchu’s reopening. Booked trips hovered just under 300 by May and shot up to 365 by the end of June before tapering off again in July and August. It wasn’t until the holiday season that demand picked up again, with about 667 trips to Peru booked in November.
“Most bookings into Peru that were made in November were driven by Cyber Monday sales,” said Fernando Rodriguez, general manager for Peru at Intrepid.
The political turmoil has taken a toll. Peru is historically the top-selling destination in South America for Intrepid’s North American market, but Ecuador led the company’s South America bookings for 2023 and leads for 2024, so far.
And while Peru bookings made in 2022 for 2023 were up 24% compared with those made in 2021 for 2022, bookings made in 2023 for 2024 were down 36% compared with 2019.
“Peru was hit hard with the unrest and political landscape this year,” said Steve Lima, vice president of growth for the U.S. and Latin America at G Adventures. “We definitely saw some pullback and softening on the destination, but the interesting thing is that we feel we have a resilient type of traveler. Our passengers tend to not cancel as much as they do with other providers, and when something happens, they tend to wait. Some just delay their bookings or even shift to Peru from other canceled trips.”
This resiliency is why Lima said he believes Peru’s rebound for G Adventures has been robust.
For travelers who had credits with G Adventures, whether from the company canceling trips to Peru in January and February because of the protests, or unused credits from Covid or other company-driven cancellations, Lima said Peru was the No. 1 destination that its customers picked to rebook their trips.
“The travel credit could have come from Israel or it could have come from another destination,” Lima said. “Peru has really bounced back hard, and it’s an amazing comeback story.”
Paused for protests
For Peruvians working in travel, the protests hit just as the country was recovering from the pandemic.
The protests erupted in December 2022, when vice president Dina Boluarte ascended to the presidency following the ouster and arrest of the previous president, Pedro Castillo, for attempting to dissolve Congress in the face of impeachment proceedings. Those demonstrations and the government’s response resulted in the temporary closure of airports, railways and tourist sites, including the nearly monthlong closure of Machu Picchu and the Inca Trail in January 2023.
Based on conversations with tour guides working in Peru’s Sacred Valley, a global health crisis that shut down the entire world was more forgivable to them than civil unrest.
“The pandemic [pause] was OK because no one was working, we were all at home,” said Breytzi Carrion, a Peruvian tour guide with Alexander + Roberts, adding that unlike during the pandemic, when banks allowed people to pause payments on mortgages, for example, the three months of political unrest “really affected us because the banks were not going to wait this time; you had to pay.”
In addition, Carrion said, while personal finances were a huge concern, so was the perception that Peru would not be safe for tourism, something that could impact tour guides both in the short-term — during the political turmoil — and possibly in the long-term, well after the country had reopened.
Edwar Pacheco, a Cuzco native and tour guide for G Adventures, said the blow of the protests so closely following the pandemic felt like a one-two punch: Just as the world finally reopened to travel and pandemic-era restrictions had been largely lifted, this happened.
“Without any doubt, tourism was the most affected industry during the pandemic; Cuzco depends on tourism, and everyone lost their jobs,” he said. “Then the pandemic was over, everything was going well — until we had the political problems and everyone lost their jobs again for nearly three months — December, January and February.”
The protests were also a huge blow to tour operators. Political discord and protests are not uncommon in Peru, but this was different, they said.
By January, tour operators, including Intrepid Travel and G Adventures, had suspended trips to Peru. By early February, the U.S. State Department issued a travel advisory cautioning Americans to reconsider visiting the country. Tourism, a huge driver of Peru’s economy, seemed like it was in freefall.
“It was really damaging,” said Matt Berna, president and general manager of the Americas at Intrepid. “Sometimes, certain events happen and are quite short-lived, and people move on. But this seemed to stick in the news cycle for several months. And on the ground, based on the reports we were getting back, we just didn’t feel it was safe to operate, anyway.”
Bad timing for bookings
The timing of the protests also created problems because of the unique way that most Peru travel is booked.
“There’s a particular booking window for Peru, based on the permits opening up for the following season, and that usually starts in the fall,” Berna said, referring to permits that must be obtained in advance for certain hiking trails to Machu Picchu, including the Inca Trail.
Peak travel seasons to Peru are from May to June and September to October. Missing those windows to book travelers in the fall and first quarter of the new year can be detrimental to the season ahead, which was the case for a number of suppliers.
“It was soft coming back,” Alexander + Roberts’ Avera said. “Since we missed the early 2023 booking season because the protests were still in the news, we really only saw Peru bounce back for the September-October 2023 season.”
The good news, though, is that tourism looks to be back on track in Peru in 2024, for suppliers and for tour guides.
Even though small group sales have not yet rebounded, Alexander + Roberts said it has seen surprising growth in FIT travel to Peru since the fall, which it attributes to travelers prioritizing flexibility.
“I believe that when initial bookings started, guests wanted to go on their schedule and were willing to pay the small surcharge to travel privately at their own pace rather than join set, small-group departures,” Avera said. “We’re seeing those numbers even out in 2024 as guests move back to our small-group dates.”
Despite bookings for travel next year being down when compared with 2019 levels over the same time period, Intrepid said Peru was its No. 2 destination in 2023, just behind Japan.
“Bookings now through February and March are strong, and we’re seeing a lot of interest,” Berna said. “I think it’s a lot of pent-up demand to go back.”
To help stimulate tourism growth and make the case for why people needed to get back to Peru, G Adventures held its inaugural community tourism conference, the GX Summit, in Cuzco in September.
Like other suppliers, G Adventures’ bookings to Peru rebounded strongly in the fourth quarter of 2023 and are on track to continue growth in the first quarter of 2024.
“Peru is our No. 1 destination globally. It has always been a focus for us at G,” said Lima, adding that of the company’s 650 tours it has worldwide, Peru has more than 50 tours, making it the largest destination in the company’s portfolio. He said the company’s nonprofit, Planeterra, has more projects there than anywhere else. “We have our two largest offices outside of our base in Toronto. We are highly integrated in Peru, more than any other destination.”
And in a sign that Peru either has high expectations for visitors this year, the daily visitor cap for Machu Picchu is expected to rise from 4,044 to 4,500.
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