Latin American Tourism: An Australian Travel Industry Perspective.

Blessed with a great diversity of natural and cultural assets, the countries of Latin America should be thriving as international tourist destinations. The reality is, however, that the region is a long way from reaching its full potential. This paper reports the findings of a survey that investigated the reasons why Australian travel agents and tour operators thought that Latin America was receiving so few tourists from Australia. The main finding of the study was that there is a lack of knowledge among travel agents about the Latin American region. Many of them could only identify a limited number of tourist attractions in the region. While the study has an Australian focus, the authors suggest that the barriers underlying the lack of international demand for Latin American tourism products are similar to those that exist in other potential source markets. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]