Restaurants, hotels, agencies and transportation services. These are just some of the small businesses and companies that lived off the sightseeing in Cusco and who can no longer meet their financial obligations, such as maintaining their staff or paying the loans they owe as part of their efforts to reactivate after the pandemic. In other words, that the chain of payments has been broken. This was explained by Berner Caballero, president of the Cusco Regional Chamber of Tourism.
“Here we continue to have riots, roadblocks and that unfortunately has paralyzed the tourism sector (…). All this has resulted in tourism in Cusco being blocked, and this is definitely causing many businesses to be unable to operate and many are stopping hiring staff due to the cancellation of reservations, ”he warned in conversation with Peru21.
“In addition, some financial entities are reporting that the Reactiva credits and those they obtained for the tourism sector (FAE) are already in arrears,” he added.
Another concern of the companies in the sector is the future that awaits them during the rest of this first semester, since they anticipate more canceled reservations even if the blockades stop, due to the fact that the formal agencies work six months in advance.
The CEO of Casa Andina, Juan Stoessel, also stated that the critical situation observed due to the blockades and violence has led to a lack of tourism that has caused the payment chain to break.
“Over 90% of lodgings are closed. That means that there are no foreign or national tourists; there is no income for anyone in the chain, nor hotels, restaurants, suppliers, tourist transport”, Stoessel asserted to this newspaper.
