Colombia increases costs of tourist services air tickets

At a general level, the travel industry has been showing significant growth, despite the situation of recent years, since the promotion of destinations, the relief granted by the National Government and the training of sector actors have been a fundamental pillar to transform marketing strategies and adapt tourist attractions to new conditions.

“We have worked for the recovery of companies, to boost tourism and that has left us with very good results. However, we started 2023 with an unfavorable scenario, which will undoubtedly make it difficult to continue with the pace we had been having and that is why additional support is required to help us continue to recover," said Paula Cortés Calle, executive president of ANATO.  

The foregoing, taking into account the latest DANE CPI Report, which showed an annual increase in the prices of passenger and baggage transportation by plane of 28%; and in the case of tourist packages, 14%, at the end of 2022.

It should be noted that, during the pandemic, thanks to the work of ANATO with the National Government, tourist services were exempt from VAT, but as of January 2023, they will have an additional increase of 19%, which will make the cost more expensive. cost of these. This, added to the increase in VAT on air tickets, which will go from 5% to 19%, so they will also have an increase of 14%, in addition to that of 2022, a measure that the Association was unable to include in the tax reform, to keep it at 5%.

“We hope that this situation does not discourage national and international travel and that the conditions are in place to support this important sector of the economy. After the pandemic, we received support from the Government that helped businessmen, from a seriously affected industry, to solve the complications in their sales and employed personnel. However, under this scenario we will have to reassess actions in search of promoting travel”, concluded the union leader.