affirmed that the economies making up the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum have been discussing the incorporation of the tourism informality issue in the Strategic Plan for Sustainable Tourism Development in the Asia-Pacific region for 2025-2029.
In remarks to Andina news agency, Vasquez mentioned that the roadmap for the transition of informal economic actors to the formal economy is one of Peru's priority objectives for 2024 and for all APEC economies.
"In that sense, we are also addressing the issue of informality in tourism. The tourism sector is one of the most affected by informality; therefore, discussions are underway in the Tourism Working Group on how to incorporate this issue into the upcoming Strategic Plan for Sustainable Tourism Development in the Asia-Pacific region for the 2025-2029 period, considering that the plan for the years 2020-2024 is nearing completion," he indicated.
Vasquez also pointed out that as tourism "was severely affected" by the COVID-19 pandemic, not only in the case of Peru, this effect was "devastating" for many economies in this sector.
He recalled that in 2019 Peru welcomed 4.4 million tourists, with approximately 1.5 million people directly or indirectly involved in the tourism sector, generating 1.5 million jobs.
However, in 2022, the number of visitors decreased to 2 million, and the number of (tourism sector) jobs dropped to 1 million.
"So, it is highly probable that informality levels may have even increased due to the effects of this global pandemic," he said.
Therefore, Vasquez affirmed that discussions on how to increase cooperation among all APEC economies "to recover the tourism sector in the Asia-Pacific region" are currently underway.
On the other hand, he stated that these days in Urubamba, Cusco region, various tourism issues are being discussed by all sectors, including creative industries, which can have an enormous (positive) impact on Peru.