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 Travel & Outdoors | March 2006 
Colombia Cleaning Up Drugs-and-Violence Image
 CNN.com
| | Tourists enjoy the sunset on a beach in the Caribbean city of Cartagena, Colombia. |
Bogota, Colombia (AP) - 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 travelers, 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 ever hoped for or can maybe even handle," said the country's 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. Kidnappings have dropped 78 percent during Uribe's four years in office, to 371 last year according to the government. That may even be below Haiti and the tourist haven of Mexico, where kidnappings-for-cash have boomed.
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. Promoters hope the icon, a heart with the flowing lines of a flower, will become as easily recognizable as the Canadian maple leaf or Japanese rising sun.
Bolstered by the PR blitz, the Caribbean port city of Cartagena was selected in December to host the World Tourism Organization'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 U.S. consultant who advised Colombia on its marketing campaign. "Whenever I meet foreigners in Bogota they always beg me not to tell anyone."
Even the U.S. State Department, which for years advised against traveling to Colombia, has softened its travel warning, acknowledging that while dangers persist, the violence in most urban areas has decreased markedly.
'Still well off the gringo trail'
In the 1970s, before the emergence of cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar and drug-fueled violence shut much of the country off from the world and even most Colombians, it was an obligatory stop for globe-trotting hippies.
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.
Best of all, for now there are precious few camera-clickers to share them all with, because the boom still has a ways to go before catching up with more traveled 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, according to the World Tourism Organization.
"It's still well off the gringo trail," said Michael Kohn, author of a new Colombia guidebook for Lonely Planet due out in June. "The only people you have to share the swaying wax palms and sweaty salsa clubs with are a handful of hardy travelers and crowds of friendly Colombians."
The biggest tourist magnet is the 16th-century walled city of Cartagena, whose reputation for beach-combing, stunning colonial architecture and all-night partying has long made it one of the Caribbean's top destinations.
The city is luring back the attention of the international cruise lines, whose deep-pocketed passengers are the most coveted in the tourist trade. Since 2003, the number of cruise ship arrivals has jumped by 45 percent, to 45,000 last year, the city's tourist board said.
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.
Colombians are rejoicing over the belated discovery of their country. When The New York Times in February ran an article singing the praises of Bogota, it was announced with fanfare on the front page of the city's main daily El Tiempo.
Getting too far off the beaten path still entails huge risks, however.
Even most Colombians won't visit the Sierra Macarena National Park or the jungle-fringed beaches along the Pacific Ocean, areas effectively controlled by leftist guerrillas battling soldiers sent in to eradicate their coca fields and clandestine drug labs.
And even Colombia's urban centers remain far from a casual traveler's paradise. The tourism infrastructure, particularly Bogota's international airport, lags behind other Latin American destinations. While homicides have dropped to their lowest level in two decades, many life insurance policies still won't cover travel to Colombia.
Frommer's and Fodor's, two venerable guidebook companies, have never published a Colombia guide and neither has any plans to do so now. Indeed, for most mainstream travelers, Colombia's image as a haven for drug-traffickers, kidnappers and guerrillas remains firmly branded in their minds.
"Travel decisions are based almost entirely on perception and unfortunately in Colombia's case some of those perceptions square up too dangerously with reality," said Laura Kidder, editorial director for Fodor's. "I wouldn't recommend the place for a family vacation just yet." |
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