Latin America Is Busier and Costlier This Year

Never mind that destinations like Buenos Aires are already so popular that booking flights and hotel rooms there at this time of year is difficult. The more visitors the merrier, apparently.

That's the outlook for travel to Central and South America this season -- busier than ever.

True, travel there may cost a bit more than last year, but that's not preventing Americans from heeding the call to go south.

"Prices have gone up, but not dramatically," said Manny Lubian of Futura Travel, a Miami travel agency. That, coupled with the soaring cost of travel to Europe, will drive more Americans to South America, he believes.

All well and good, provided you can find space.

"I have to beg for rooms," said Alex Levin of The Travel Center, a Miami travel agency. That view was seconded by Daniel Taramona, owner of Tara Tours of Miami. "Argentina and Chile are sold out for December, January and part of February," he said. "It's unbelievable!"

But all is not lost. Few locales in the region are as busy as Buenos Aires, and in any case many tour operators have hotel rooms locked up under contract in the Argentine capital for their package clients.

The United Nations' World Tourism Organization reports that Central America sustained its double-digit growth in international arrivals in the first four months of 2006; South America, while slowing, still posted such robust gains as 16 percent for Peru and 12 percent for Argentina.

Travel to Argentina has been booming since the peso was devalued five years ago, making visits to that country much cheaper for Americans. Other South American nations also have been enjoying a spike in U.S. visitation.

A noticeable trend in travel to the south is that Americans are becoming more sophisticated travelers, travel agents say. "They're choosing more exotic destinations, like Nazca in Peru and Patagonian Chile," said Futura's Lubian. Beatriz Cabrera of Maxima Travel, a travel agency in Wellington, says she recently booked travel for clients who went hunting and camping in the Argentine pampas.

WORLD HERITAGE SITES

Add to that the offbeat appeal of Chile's new World Heritage sites -- Humberstone and Santa Laura in the north, both former saltpeter works, and Sewell, an old mining town in the south. "We've also seen an increase in small luxury lodge hotels, like Explora and Remota. At least 10 of them," added Pablo Retumal, director for North America Chile Tourism.

Central America, too, is busy. "Costa Rica is always full," said the Travel Center's Lubin, "though flight costs have doubled." Panama, Nicaragua and the Honduran island of Roatan also are burgeoning destinations, travel agents say.

Space on airlines heading south is getting tight. American Airlines enjoyed a record number of passengers from Miami to Central and South America in 2005, "and we will pass that this year," said Martha Pantin, American's spokeswoman in Miami.

"In fact," Pantin said, "passengers were only allowed to take prescribed luggage aboard [in early December]. No extra bags, even if they would pay for them."

The airline has resumed its seasonal thrice-weekly nonstops from Miami to Montevideo, and this month is adding second flights from Miami to Rio de Janeiro and La Paz and a fourth flight to Sao Paulo. It flies more than 1,000 seats a day from Miami to Buenos Aires.

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