El Salvador claim bitcoin attracts tourists right or wrong?

[Accardo]

Recently El Salvador confirmed bitcoin magnets tourists to the nation. Claims bitcoin attracted 1.1 million visitors in 6 month was opposed by the wall street journal, saying most visitors never used bitcoin in the bitcoin beach and other stores that accepted bitcoin in the country. Given an example of a small bohemian hotel “Lagarza" owned by Daniel García, who confirmed only 15 bitcoin transaction since it became a legal tender in the country.

He went further saying that most visitors in the country paid with bitcoin to brag, though, it was made known in the article that, some vendors in El Salvador don't have a bitcoin wallet. And the country need to teach citizens how to transact with bitcoin to enable swift transaction.

What could have attracted cryptocurrency tourists to El Salvador if not bitcoin? So I think the wall street journal article covered a small part of El Salvador hotels.  

https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2022/07/06/el-salvador-bitcoin-beach/ (Proves visitors don't use bitcoin)


https://www.google.com/amp/s/cointelegraph.com/news/tourists-flock-to-el-salvador-despite-bitcoin-bear-market/amp (Proves traders use bitcoin)

[Yogee]

Recently El Salvador confirmed bitcoin magnets tourists to the nation. Claims bitcoin attracted 1.1 million visitors in 6 month

When did they claim this? I cannot find any direct statement in the Cointelegraph article that the inlux of tourists was because of bitcoin becoming a legal tender in the country. Can you quote that part in the washingtonpost article if they said it there. I couldn't open it.

What could have attracted cryptocurrency tourists to El Salvador if not bitcoin?

Beaches? Search top destination in Central America and El Salvador is included in some blogs. Tourism is already a huge part of their economy prior to the adoption of bitcoin so claims that people went there because it's crypto friendly sounds overreaching. Cointelegraph couldn't provide data that thousands of bitcoiners visited since the country adopted bitcoin.

[kryptqnick]

I can see that El Salvador claims they got way more tourists this year than last year (a total of 1.1 million tourists in 6 months versus a total of 1.2 million tourists last year). The article on Cointelegraph says 'last year' but also refers to it as 2019, which must be some sort of mistake.
Needless to say, if 1.1 million is a total figure, it certainly can't all be attributed to Bitcoin (and from what I've seen, it's not). And if last year is 2021 (not 2019), then the increase can be easily attributed to relaxation of covid policies. In 2019, El Salvador had 2.64 million tourists. It doesn't seem like this year will beat that, even.

[Coyster]

What could have attracted cryptocurrency tourists to El Salvador if not bitcoin? So I think the wall street journal article covered a small part of El Salvador hotels.

I don't think El Salvador have invested in bitcoin to attract tourists, if you want to attract tourists i guess it is your enviroment you must work on and beautify; and tbh i don't know how Bitcoin can possibly attract tourists to a particular country, popular tourist/most visited countries like France, Spain, USA etc, have zero or no affiliation with Bitcoin, especially in the aspect of it being a legal tender, yet millions of people go there every year. Having said that, the people that visit El Salvador do it for other reasons than Bitcoin, Bitcoin isn't widely accepted but there are one or two places one can spend them in their own country instead of travelling to El Salvador to do so. El Salvador have invested in Bitcoin so they can prolly make ROI in the long run.

[DaveF]

I can see it increasing tourism for people who use / like BTC and want to go to a location that promotes / supports / uses it.

If I was someone who wanted to go someplace in Central America for a beach holiday for a week during the winter here I could see the fact that outside of the flights I could 'live on BTC' there it would influence my travel decision.

The true numbers are going to be hard to figure for a while because of the pandemic lock-downs and travel restrictions tourism numbers are all distorted vs previous years.

-Dave

[xSkylarx]

What could have attracted cryptocurrency tourists to El Salvador if not bitcoin? So I think the wall street journal article covered a small part of El Salvador hotels.  

Bitcoin did really make El Salvador a popular country but that is not the only reason why tourists are going on that country. According to the link below, their country has many beaches, volcanoes, and historical ruins that are worth visiting. Tourists would enjoy their trip there since it is less crowded compared to other neighboring countries.

https://www.airtransat.com/experiencetransat/10-reasons-visit-el-salvador/

[Solosanz]

Their statistic are useless since they only record how many tourists visit El Salvador alone, they need to have recorded the whole store of how much the Bitcoin was used since all the businessman getting forced to implemented Bitcoin as an alternative payment. If there's many Bitcoin transaction on El Salvador, we can say many people were using Bitcoin, but if not then there's no relation between tourists and Bitcoin.

AFAIK Bitcoin usage in El Salvador are quite high around 10% from all the citizens, I think Bitcoin may attract tourists but not significant.

[amishmanish]

Yes bitcoiners are great tourists as well. While many nations have banned Bitcoin and there are hefty taxes on Bitcoin earning. Such  nationals need a safe heaven. El Salvador has given them that option. If Swiss banks can be the fiat heaven El Salvador is Bitcoin heaven and will reap benifits for the same.
.

[Wiwo]

I think we are judging too soon, if we want to give statistics on tourism in El Salvador we must also not forget to put the pandemic and timing into consideration, is nearly a year since El Salvador adopted Bitcoin and the level of awareness is still low within the citizens, so Bitcoin usage in El Salvador will still be low. But then if you have been following up with the El Salvador Bitcoin adoption thread you will find quite a lot of information and statistics on records on Bitcoin adoption and El Salvador Bitcoin city and other government agencies just like the beach that aid the tourism industry in El Salvador.
Check this thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5342087.msg60593003#msg60593003

[dothebeats]

El Salvador is already a top tourist destination before they adopted bitcoin. What they did with bitcoin perhaps helped with their PR, and introduced them to a lot of people that never knew them before. Perhaps what happened is that people got curious with El Salvador because of bitcoin, but after some careful research they went there because the country has something to offer which attracted them. A few percentage of those tourists may have actually traveled there because of bitcoin, but to say that a lot of them went there due to that fact is, IMO, reaching.

[Accardo]

When did they claim this? I cannot find any direct statement in the Cointelegraph article that the inlux of tourists was because of bitcoin becoming a legal tender in the country. Can you quote that part in the washingtonpost article if they said it there. I couldn't open it.

 
Maybe you skipped this;

Since El Salvador adopted Bitcoin as legal tender, thousands of Bitcoiners have made the trip.

I also found a tweet that best suits everyone under the thread that said is not all about bitcoin. El Salvador President said so;



So, I'll need different views on the question though everyone is skeptical if bitcoin is the reason why they is an increase in the number of tourists in the nation. I think the tweet above can reshape your views now, thanks.

[pooya87]

Recently El Salvador confirmed bitcoin magnets tourists to the nation. Claims bitcoin attracted 1.1 million visitors in 6 month

I haven't seen this claim. What they claimed was that due to bitcoin their tourism has grown more without giving any numbers or claiming all of it was because of bitcoin (like saying 1.1 million came to El Salvador because of bitcoin).
There are a couple of reasons contributing to this increase, one of them is bitcoin and another big one is increased security in El Salvador ever since they started fighting gangs and of course the fact that pandemic is not as serious as before.

was opposed by the wall street journal,

Although I agree that the adoption statistics in El Salvador seem exaggerated but WSJ is not a reliable source to know the details of how much bitcoin was spent by the tourists in another country.

What could have attracted cryptocurrency tourists to El Salvador if not bitcoin?

A beautiful country with a lot of beaches near the Pacific Ocean, some historical sites and more importantly low costs there! Then we have bitcoin as the cherry on top

[ethereumhunter]

We don't know if the statement is true or false because we are not in El Salvador and see firsthand whether the people there or visitors pay with bitcoin as it says. Even if that is true, it is an attraction to attract more tourists, especially tourists who have a lot of bitcoins, to experience using bitcoin as a means of payment.

But hopefully, the news is true so that more people will visit El Salvador. But actually, El Salvador needs to see the tourism potential in their country as an attraction for tourists and maybe they can use bitcoin as a means of payment.

[Lucius]

After 2 years of the pandemic (which is still going on) people wanted to travel and that's why this year is very good or even excellent in many countries. I think that a part of tourists really choose El Salvador because of the fact that Bitcoin is legal tender in that country, but I don't think that this significantly affects their results in tourism.

In addition, there are very few globally who own Bitcoin at all, and even fewer who are ready to spend it - especially in larger amounts.

There are a couple of reasons contributing to this increase, one of them is bitcoin and another big one is increased security in El Salvador ever since they started fighting gangs and of course the fact that pandemic is not as serious as before.

They may have raised the level of security compared to a few years ago, but only a few months ago President Bukele canceled a visit to a conference in Miami due to gang violence in that country. That country is far from the security that an average European is used to, but maybe it's less of a problem for tourists from the US, to whom gangs and violence are nothing strange.

[DdmrDdmr]

Bukele is attributing the results due to bitcoin, surf and the crackdown on gangs. Nevertheless, though these factors likely weigh-in to some extent, there is no real evidence that they do, nor to the extent that each one applies.

The World Tourism Barometer report give El Salvador a 6% increase in tourism earnings over data from 2019. 2019 is used as a reference pre-pandemic reference base, thus this increase is seen as a sign of recovery. This other document from the UNWTO gives El Salvador a -1% decrease in tourism arrivals vs 2019 (see slide on page 15).

All the above, albeit not being much in terms of depth, suggests that tourism in El Salvador is essentially as it was before the pandemic, but does not reflect a boost of any kind compared to 2019 that we could say is heavily influenced by bitcoin. Logically on a personal scale we’d find hundreds of testimonials pointing to them using bitcoin there and having fun in the country, but that does not seem like something to extrapolate as being a core driver in recovering pre-pandemic figures, and it certainly does not seem to show in terms of a boost up from 2019 figures.

[franky1]

going to el salvador is on my list of places to go.
i didnt go before due to pandemic and also because their initial chivo wallet was a badly implemented wallet that caused alot of issues when i was talking to some el salvadorians.(LN route bottlenecks)

they have now shifted the backbone of chive wallet away from the LN model and moved over to a CEX model which has seen a better experience. but a slow adoption to regain their citizens trust in easy to use currency.
once they get more widespread and common and educated on it i would love to visit them and just be able to go anywhere and pay in bitcoin.
i just think they rushed it last year and now trying to have another go in a more rational and paced speed.

i look forward to going when i think they have settled in and got used to using bitcoin as a currency and not a tourist gimmick

[The Cryptovator]

I am not getting what is the relationship between Bitcoin legal tender & tourism. I don't see any reasonable scenario between that. Also, increase tourists doesn't mean Bitcoin, it's likely due to the COVID break. If tourist visits El Salvador due to Bitcoin being legal tender, then they should curious to use Bitcoin there. But not happening anything like this.

[Oneandpure]

Some of bitcoin investor really interested when have country available payment by using bitcoin, tourist will be easy when making transaction trough bitcoin without have to convert their own local money to El Savador cash money. I think all transaction needed like paying hotel, airplane ticket or anything could pay with bitcoin. I think their claim looks true because when bitcoin have been adopt as legal currency transaction will give chance for many tourist try to make payment with bitcoin, but still not really popular what tourist destination on El Savador, they have beautiful beach view or they have many historical place, maybe some here could mention about destination place by tourist when going to El Savador.

[Doan9269]

Recently El Salvador confirmed bitcoin magnets tourists to the nation. Claims bitcoin attracted 1.1 million visitors in 6 month was opposed by the wall street journal, saying most visitors never used bitcoin in the bitcoin beach and other stores that accepted bitcoin in the country.

It is right that El-Savador does not adopt bitcoin all because of tourist attraction but in it adoption comes a tourist advantage and opportunities in which it has utilize such opportunity to make a good economy advantage as well.

Given an example of a small bohemian hotel “Lagarza" owned by Daniel García, who confirmed only 15 bitcoin transaction since it became a legal tender in the country.

Do you think 15 bitcoin worth of transaction is a small figure with respect to USD, when you do the conversion you will discover that it's a reasonable amount at least on just a single entity made for transaction.

He went further saying that most visitors in the country paid with bitcoin to brag, though, it was made known in the article that, some vendors in El Salvador don't have a bitcoin wallet. And the country need to teach citizens how to transact with bitcoin to enable swift transaction.

Those vendors may not necessarily use only the chivo wallet but i can assure you that everyone there has a good advantage in making use of the chivo wallet

What could have attracted cryptocurrency tourists to El Salvador if not bitcoin? So I think the wall street journal article covered a small part of El Salvador hotels.

Exactly!

[Rikafip]

Do you think 15 bitcoin worth of transaction is a small figure with respect to USD, when you do the conversion you will discover that it's a reasonable amount at least on just a single entity made for transaction.

I think that you misunderstood what @Accardo  wrote; that hotel owner didn't have 15 BTC worth of transactions, but overall 15 bitcoin transactions which is entirely different thing and far from impressive.


I know quite a few bitcoiners in real life who regularly go to exotic locations and I never heard any of them wanting to go to El Salvador just because bitcoin is a legal tender there and I gotta say that fact would be very low on my priority list when choosing for a next vacation location. So yeah, I don't think that bitcoin attracts many tourists there.