Tourists flock to El Salvador despite Bitcoin bear market

by · August 4, 2022

Tourism in El Salvador has skyrocketed in the first half of 2022. Up 82.8% this year alone, there were 1.1 million visitors to El Salvador this year, according to government figures. This despite the fact that the price of Bitcoin (BTC) has fallen almost 50% since January 1st.

Data from the World Travel Organization reinforces the claims. The small Central American country is internationally recognized as “one of the countries with the best rate of tourism recovery in the region as of January 2022.”

The WTO report says some “Central American destinations have the best results compared to 2019,” including El Salvador at +81% compared to 2019, or pre-pandemic levels.

Contrary to Wall Street Journal reports that El Salvador’s bet on Bitcoin to attract tourists “hasn’t worked,” visits for the first half of this year nearly surpassed the total number of visits in 2019: 1.1 million people visited the country in six months , compared to last year’s total of 1.2 million.

In a radio interview, the general director of strategic projects at the Ministry of Tourism of El Salvador, Alex Bonilla, explained that during the summer vacation period, the country can expect “57,500 international visitors, who will generate 60 million dollars in foreign exchange during this period. vacation.” It is expected that the 1.2 million figure will soon be beaten.

Since El Salvador adopted Bitcoin as legal tender, thousands of Bitcoiners have made the trip. Big-name Bitcoiners like Jeff Booth, founder and author of Price tomorrow, Obi Nwosu, CEO of Fedimint, the decentralized community savings solution, and Samson Mow, CEO of Jan3, have all made pilgrimages to El Salvador.

As Tone Vays, a Bitcoin analyst, said of his visit to El Salvador, “99.9% of the world had no idea where this country was; maybe 98% didn’t know this country ever existed – they [El Salvador] absolutely on the map now.” Bitcoin advocates are keen to bring home gushing tales of their trip to the land of volcanoes. At the same time, Bitcoin-centric companies are motivated to make El Salvador’s Bitcoin game a success.

Related: Morgan Stanley urges investors to buy defaulted El Salvador eurobonds

Max Keizer and Stacey Herbert, Bitcoin OGs, chose to live in El Salvador and now base their podcasting and broadcasting in El Salvador. As part of the Bitcoin Bill, residency in El Salvador could effectively be purchased for 3 BTC, or $66,000 at the time of writing, as part of an investment in the country. Escape to El Salvador, a professional community that helps people move to El Salvador told Cointelegraph that the 3 BTC for residency strategy merged into the “Volcano Bonds offering”. They told Cointelegraph:

“It doesn’t automatically mean you’re resident, you still have to apply, but you can use the holding as grounds for the application, like a student can use an acceptance letter from a university for a ‘student visa’. It’s still a process.”

El Salvador, known as “El Hodlador” in some circles, also hosted a number of central bankers in May this year. The influential group of visitors “did not discuss Bitcoin,” according to the Central Bank of Paraguay, whose delegate was a tourist in El Salvador. However, there were many photos of the 44 central bankers and economists using the Bitcoin Beach Wallet in El Zonte, the birthplace of BTC adoption in the country.

The capital, San Salvador, hosts the Adopting Bitcoin conference, a Lightning Summit in November this year. Over 80 Bitcoin and Lightning Network experts will take the stage during the conference, with representatives from Blockstream, Spiral and the El Salvador government.