Action under the Responsible Tourism Plan 2020-24 focuses on three areas: strengthening public and private governance, increasing competitiveness of the tourism ecosystem, and promoting responsible tourism.
Planning is now underway for a new National Tourism Strategy covering the period 2020-30. Principal issues to be addressed include improving the structure of institutions, establishing better connections between industry interests, addressing seasonality, and increasing competitiveness. The Strategy is likely to prioritise action on innovation and digital transformation, support a national airports plan, strengthen inter-ministerial co-ordination, develop specific market opportunities, and improve standards and training. It will also update existing legislation and seek increases to the marketing budget.
Fostering new tourism experiences and developing the tourism offer to tap into new market segments is a key area of focus, with actions being taken in a number of priority areas, including:
Astro-tourism: the 2020 total solar eclipse will be particularly visible in Chile, and under the 2016-25 Astro-tourism Roadmap the country has set ambitious targets to triple visitor numbers by improving the quality, attractiveness and diversity of the offer. An Inter-sectoral Commission led by the Cabinet of the President and the Ministry of Science is co-ordinating actions for future solar eclipses, working closely with the Undersecretary of Tourism.
Wine and gastronomy tourism: the Multi-regional Strategic Programme of Sustainable Wine Tourism is a public-private initiative bringing major wine producing regions together with the tourism industry, while a series of Taste of Chile seminars are stimulating dialogue and connecting key interests to exchange information and facilitate the development of gastronomy tourism.
Indigenous tourism: work is underway to develop a pilot project in co-operation with, and based on the national guidelines for developing authentic indigenous experiences of, the Canadian Indigenous Tourism Association. A co-ordination with the Office of Indigenous Affairs (CONADI) is also in place.
Routes development: a new product development programme focused on linear touring routes has highlighted the opportunities to draw on a rich culture and landscape, with ten routes now defined under the Routes Chile project. This complements work undertaken by the Ministry of National Properties on Heritage Trails of high landscape value where routes with potential as tourism assets are being developed. Ten routes are prioritised for the period 2018-22.
Adventure and sports tourism: a joint programme between the Undersecretary of Tourism and the Ministry of Sport seeks to build on Chile’s strength in this area.
Rural tourism: under a collaboration agreement between the Undersecretary of Tourism and the Ministry of Agriculture, a joint action plan to strengthen rural tourism has been developed.
A range of other future oriented policy approaches have been implemented recently. Working together with Invest Chile, the Invest Tourism initiative (Invierte Turismo), which maps tourism investment opportunities at regional level, was updated in 2019, has highlighted tourism investment opportunities throughout the country (www.invierteturismo.cl). While a major CLP 1.5 million Strategic Plan for Human Capital has, drawn funding from various parts of Government with 16 specific goals delivered to upskill the workforce in 2019.
Work is also underway to develop a Digital Transformation and Innovation in Tourism Policy, building on the Transform Tourism (Transforma Turismo) programme, which is a public-private initiative with the following objectives:
Promote the uptake of new technology to increase industry competitiveness,
Encourage continuous improvement of the industry, its institutions and companies,
Incorporate digital know-how from other sectors into the tourism industry,
Ensure Chile is a regional leader in digital transformation in tourism.
Established in collaboration with the Chilean Economic Development Agency, as well as representatives of the private sector. This initiative has created a Tourism App for consumers, developed the Connect Tourism programme (Conecta Turismo) focusing on the digitalisation of the product across the entire country, and runs the Digitalise Your SME initiative (Digitaliza tu Pyme), which aims to encourages tourism SMEs to uptake digital technologies and train businesses in the many different aspects of digital marketing and management. The Government has also sought to deregulate existing laws to allow an easier route to register a new tourism business. It aims to benefit small companies, especially from local communities, indigenous people, local guides and other groups.
