Ecuador’s tourist sector amassed bigger revenues in 2002

The Ecuadorian leisure industry is hoping to wrap up 2002 with a 6 percent increase compared to the year before, according to the nation’s Minister of Tourism Rocio Vazquez, who underscored her country’s assortment of tourist offers ranging from jungles and beaches to mountains and the Galapagos Islands.

Preliminary estimates conclude that tourism has contributed 4.4 percent to Ecuador’s Gross National Product in 2002 –some $540 million compared to $516 million last year.

Experts believe this increase stems from newly designed programs for environmental, ecological, natural, ethnic, farming, cultural and entertainment tourism.

The number of tourists that visited the country this year is in the neighborhood of 640,000. A significant chunk of them hailed from the U.S., the U.K., Spain, France and Germany.