PHOTO: Islas del Golf, El Salvador. Courtesy El Salvador Tourism.
The Minister of Tourism for El Salvador, José Napoleón Duarte Durán stressed to European tourism professionals the country's progress in Tourism Competitiveness, based on the recent World Economic Forum report.
El Salvador has rapidly climbed positions in the world ranking of tourism competitiveness compiled by the World Economic Forum, which analyzes the vacation industry from 141 countries around the world.
"In the previous edition, in 2013 (the study is conducted every two years), El Salvador occupied position 104 and, this year, took the 91 spot, advancing 13 points in tourism competitiveness in two years and recovering indices from 2009, before the world economic crisis, achieving a rating of 3.41 out of 7," said an official during a private meeting with senior officials of tourism from Europe and Latin America.
According to the report, the country shows substantial progress in several of the 14 indicators on a 1-to-7 rating scale, one of which is the "prioritization of travel and tourism" which improved from an assessment of 4.1 to 4.5 in the comparison period.
El Salvador's "effectiveness of marketing to attract tourists" showed the most progress and improved from an assessment of 3.9 and a position of 101 out of 140 nations in 2013 to a 4.5 assessment and a position of 70 out of 141 countries. As for the ICT Readiness Index, based on online services and business operations in the country, its assessment was improved going from 2.7 to 3.7.
With regard to ground and port infrastructure, El Salvador improved its rating, going from 3.4 to 4.1. This progress is due to the improvement in the quality of roads as well as the port infrastructure and land transport network.
In tourist service infrastructure, the country was rated 3.7 out of 7, while in 2013 it earned a 3.3 rating. This indicator measures the number of rooms per hotel and the use of ATM for credit card payments.
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