Colombia - guns, drugs and fun

April 03 2006
By Joshua Goodman

When it comes to tough sells for a vacation, it doesn’t get much tougher than Colombia. The South American country has a well-earned reputation for gun-toting guerrillas, cocaine kingpins and the world’s highest kidnapping rate.

But, after decades of being shunned as too dangerous for travellers, the country is riding an unprecedented tourist boom.

Spurred by news of the country’s dramatically improved security situation and healthy economy, nearly a million foreigners visited last year, a 21 percent jump over 2004 and the largest influx since 1982, according to Colombia’s Commerce, Industry and Tourism Ministry.

Their goal for 2006 is to double that again, to 2 million foreign visitors.

“The buzz about Colombia is spreading faster than we hoped for or can even handle,” said the tourism director, Carlos Vives.

Credit goes to the country’s popular right-wing president, Alvaro Uribe, whose firm-handed pursuit of the rebels has restored relative safety to once perilous roadways.

For years, only Colombian vacationers seemed willing to test the waters, at times driving to tourist hotspots in military-escorted caravans. Now that the highways are more secure, they travel in bumper-to-bumper droves every weekend, and the foreigners are following.

For the first time, the government is spending heavily to promote the country abroad. To clean up its drugs-and-violence image, it launched, last year, a long-term, multimillion-dollar “Colombia is Passion” campaign.

Bolstered by the PR blitz, the Caribbean port city of Cartagena was selected in December to host the World Tourism Organisation’s 2007 convention, the travel industry’s most important gathering.

And the staff of the Lonely Planet backpacker guides picked Colombia as one of this year’s 10 hot spots, alongside Antarctica, China and soccer World Cup host Germany.

“It’s the world’s best-kept tourist secret,” said David Lightle, a consultant who advised Colombia on its marketing campaign.

“Whenever I meet foreigners in Bogota they always beg me not to tell anyon

Twice the size of France, Colombia boasts myriad natural attractions, from Amazon jungles to some of the last high-altitude glaciers left in the tropics and pristine beaches along the Pacific and Caribbean coasts.

Visitors can see pre-Columbian archaeological ruins and still-vibrant indigenous cultures as well as great museums in Medellin and Bogota.

'Colombia is Passion'
Best of all, for now, there are precious few camera-clickers to share them all with, because the boom still has a way to go before catching up with more travelled South American destinations. Colombia is the continent’s second most populous country, after Brazil, but ranked seventh in the region’s tourist arrivals in 2004.

To make room for all the tourists, a record 45 new hotels were built in Colombia last year, many in Cartagena and nearby beach resorts, according to the country’s hotel trade association. Generous tax breaks to promote the tourist trade were in part responsible for the building spree.

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