PBH / colombia (travelguide, pictures) / post

COL tourism news from CS Monitor

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0509/p06s01-woam.html

couple of things stands out..

1) foreign visitors to Colombia has jumped 65 percent since 2002, to 925,000 last year, according to Carlos Alberto Zarruk, Colombia's deputy minister for business development, who oversees tourism.

2) The Lonely Planet travel guides, for instance, picked Colombia as one of the 10 top travel hotspots for 2006.
"The security situation has changed, and perhaps more important, the perception of the security situation has changed, which is fundamental for foreign tourists to come to Colombia," Mr. Zarruk says, adding that officials would like to see the number of tourists double this year to 2 million. "Colombia should see many millions of tourists a year."

3) "I think I can sell Cartagena and Leticia," Mr. Hodel says, referring to the colonial walled city on Colombia's northern coast and the gateway city to the Amazon basin. But, he says, "People would think I was crazy if I offered them Medellín" - the city once home to a notorious drug cartel of the same name.

4) Lonely Planet's website displays this warning: "While risks to foreigners are minimal, kidnapping and homicide rates in Colombia still remain high.... Areas to avoid include Chocó, Putumayo and anywhere east of the Andes."

5) VEN is more dangerous than COL now, 45 homocide/100,000 vs 38 homocide/100,000.

By caslug on May 14, 2006, 08:53 in Friendly Talkzone.