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Contrasty landscapes, multifaceted cultures and innovative marketing strategies - even though Ecuador, Brazil and Peru do not count as mainly booked destinations, the demand for those regions steadily increased lately. The question now is how to explain this new trend and what can travel agents do to prepare themselves for a possible boom? For any length of time some German tourists felt attracted to Latin America as a individual travel destination. However only recently countries like Ecuador, Peru or Brazil managed to grow from a premium niche market to a fast growing tourism
product.
The reasons are that on the one hand local and international hotels recently invested in high-class buildings. Yet the lion's share for that development lies with an improved flight schedule. All in all there are more flights available to the region. In addition to that, Latin American airlines now offer a higher standard of quality. Also, tickets by the Brazilian low cost airline GOL can now be bought in Germany. Besides, backpackers benefit from flexible air passes. So, there are quite a few new possibilities to travel to Latin America.
You also find that the image of Latin American countries improved a lot latterly. Classified as insecure and costly, the region now comes up with an image of cultural and scenic varieties.
The problem now is, that many travel agents aren't prepared for a boom and still do not posses the needed expertise. The professional training by the German consortium of Latin America (Arbeitsgemeinschaft Lateinamerika e.V.) finds a remedy. Here travel agents learn more about the countries and about different ways to better sell at the counter. What is more is that the new interest in Latin America provides a good opportunity for online seller. Yet nearly a hundred percent of the trips are distributed via travel agencies. Online agencies definitely have to catch up in this sector. There also is to mention, that language barriers still serve as a stumbling block for Latin American affairs. On-site it is often essential to speak Spanish or Portuguese. English knowledge can only be expected in top hotels or in overcrowded tourist areas. So, for individual tourists this point obviously is a bigger problem as for package
tourist.
In a long run also language barriers won't be a real handicap for the development of this tourism market. On the one hand, the number of Spanish speaking people in Germany increases yearly. On the other hand, the increasing number of European or American tourists in Latin American countries will make sure, that the command of English will rise in the region, so that the locals can profit by the tourists.
 Vgl. Newsletter 01/2008
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