Peru increases visitor quota at Machu Picchu after tourist protests

Tourists and Peruvians gathered on Wednesday July 27 in the village of Machu Picchu to demand an increase in the quota of daily visitors to the archaeological site.

AFP - JESUS ​​TAPIA

Text by: RFI Follow

2 mins

Thousands of tourists had the unpleasant surprise of being refused entry to Machu Picchu because too many tickets had been sold and exceeded the authorized entry quota.

Hence a demonstration on Wednesday 27 July. 

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With our regional correspondent,

Visit of Inca sites, restaurants, souvenir shopping and participation in an event.

This is the somewhat unexpected program this week of nearly a thousand tourists.

In the small streets of the

, at the foot of the citadel, they demonstrated on Wednesday July 27 to demand entrance tickets.

In solidarity with their distress, many residents accompanied them when they blocked the train that connects Machu Picchu to the city of Cusco for two days in a row.

To fight against the ravages of mass tourism in the citadel – and prevent it from being downgraded by Unesco to the rank of World Heritage in Danger – the authorities initially set the number at 3,044 exactly. number of tourists allowed to visit the site each day.

Faced with much higher demand, this limit was increased on July 17 to just over 4,000.

Overbooking

Problem, this week there was overselling of tickets, a bit like the "overbooking" of airlines.

In other cases, tourists were unable to purchase tickets over the Internet as quotas ran out until August 19, according to the Culture Ministry.

Faced with the frustration and sometimes the anger of tourists, the Peruvian authorities increased this Thursday to more than 5,000 the daily quota of authorized visitors to Machu Picchu, hoping that this will be enough.

"This decision was taken with the aim of responding, exceptionally, to the demand for visitors," said the Management Unit of Machu Picchu (UGM).

► Also to listen: Machu Picchu and the treasures of Peru

In 2019, the year before the pandemic, the citadel received 1.5 million visitors, according to official figures.

During the first half of this year, there were some 400,000 visitors.

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• Peru

• Tourism