World Bank officials informed this week the institution’s intention to lend Peru $5 million to help authorities there protect the ruins of Machu Picchu and the Incas’ Sacred Valley, the country’s two best-known cultural heritage sites. Each day, as many as two thousand people visit Machu Picchu, the Inca citadel perched atop the Peruvian Andes. That figure has been growing at a 6 percent annual rate, local tourism authorities say.

Mexico is ready to shell out $2 billion into the local tourist industry all through this year, up a whopping 39 percent from 2003, said John McCarthy, chief of the country´s National Tourism Fund. In the course of a meeting that gathered some of the Aztec nation´s top travel companies, Mr. McCarthy informed Mexico will reach the 20-million-tourist milestone by the end of the ongoing year. "At the end of the day," he added, "the country will be putting $11 billion into its coffers."

Brazil is badly needing cash to upgrade roads, railroads and seaports in the face of an export bonanza that´s definitely making the nation´s economy pick up some steam, local officials and entrepreneurs said over the weekend. Infrastructure for transporting and warehousing crops and minerals to be shipped overseas is currently working at full throttle across the South American nation.

Mexico´s travel industry is on the road to a new milestone: 20 million tourists and $11 billion worth of revenues in a single year, explained John McCarthy, chief of the country´s National Tourism Fund. The high-ranking official said "no wonder the country is going to step up investment to new record highs this year with as many as $2 billion. A considerable chunk of that cash (35 percent) will come from foreign investors and the rest will be forked over by impresarios from the turf."

An $800 million package, datelined until 2007, will be invested in Argentina’s travel industry with a considerable chunk of those funds being poured into the building of new hotels and restaurants, the Argentina Entrepreneurial Hotel & Gastronomy Federation (FEHGRA is the acronym in Spanish) and the Tourism Hotel Association (AHT) reported this week. In addition to building new hotels, this megabuck investment project pursues the streamlining and reequipping of food outlets and eateries across the country, officials from both organizations pointed out.

A grand total of 924,606 foreign tourists traveled to Chile in the first half of the ongoing year, up a blistering 18.6 percent hike from the first six months of 2003, the National Tourism Service (SERNATUR) reported this week. That inflow of travelers generated $520 million worth of gains for the country, a 30 percent increase from the first half of 2003. “This is an extraordinary growth, the biggest number of tourists ever to visit Chile,” said SERNATUR Chief Oscar Santelices.