Argentina’s Elaborate Ploy to Lure Tourists Has Begun

[carride]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...doubles-peso-ars-dollar-usd-rate-for-tourists

archived to avoid paywall

 

[DarrenKK]

I'm going off tangent a touch but I checked in to the Ibis Obelisko a few weeks ago. I paid part cash and part points on my Ibis account. Boy did that bend their minds. Obviously I forewent the "benefit" of a 21% IVA discount of a foreign card payment by paying cash but then how to treat the value of my points I used. It took a while but they did do it right in the end.

More saliently, I'd guess this will slowly work out to ease the transactional day of the visitor but half an hour in Western Union isn't that difficult.

 

[Jtee125]

There’s also still plenty of places that don’t accept credit cards, even in rather upmarket places which really surprised me

 

[Quilombo]

The ploy has been known for awhile to be fair:

- Make it possible to open bank accounts/digital wallets online with just a seflie and your DNI (RENAPER has an API for fintechs to help confirm people's identity via your selfie cam on your phone)
- Not issue larger denomination of bills so that cash transactions are a pain in the ass; now everything has a paper trail, i.e. collecting IVA when paying by credit/debit/QR, or preventing people from working en negro by triggering audits when people transfer or deposit too much cash without having registered work (or employees)
- Combining a MEP dollar with low denomination bills for tourists which results in people using their cards here; a win for the government because the BCRA collects dollars and AFIP collects IVA on the things tourists buy

Will this work? We'll have to see, as long as the brecha between the MEP and CCL isn't too big it might, but my guess is WU will respond to the decline in transfers to Argentina and make it worth standing in line for bags of notes via a better exchange rate and lower fee at some point next year until Alberto gets the boot and the MEP/CCL/Dolar Qatar/Dolar BCRA/etc. all become one.

 

[Ries]

Watching tourists come and go for 15 years now, and seeing a lot of people I know visit- The kind of tourists they want, and that I used to see all the time before the Pandemia, could care less about this, and are surely not being lured.
The Argentine Economy doesnt benefit from couch surfers who live on super panchos and cans of quilmes.
They want, and used to get, the people who stop in BA for 3 days on the way to their 40kUSD Antarctica tour.
The ones who eat at Patagonia Sur, in Boca.
I have had various US friends laughingly pay with credit cards, paying double what I pay for my share of the bill, and still be amazed how cheap it is.
I just cant see this visa EX rate affecting decisions of tourists much at all.
Most people do zero research before they get here, and are amazed they cant order a new phone on Amazon when theirs is stolen.
If you ever read the expat group on facebook, you get endless people here for 2 weeks spending more than I spend in 2 months.
The hotels in Retiro are starting to fill up again, and the chauffered black mercedes sedans are lining up in front of RapaNui.

 

[Jimbob]

Watching tourists come and go for 15 years now, and seeing a lot of people I know visit- The kind of tourists they want, and that I used to see all the time before the Pandemia, could care less about this, and are surely not being lured.
The Argentine Economy doesnt benefit from couch surfers who live on super panchos and cans of quilmes.
They want, and used to get, the people who stop in BA for 3 days on the way to their 40kUSD Antarctica tour.
The ones who eat at Patagonia Sur, in Boca.
I have had various US friends laughingly pay with credit cards, paying double what I pay for my share of the bill, and still be amazed how cheap it is.
I just cant see this visa EX rate affecting decisions of tourists much at all.
Most people do zero research before they get here, and are amazed they cant order a new phone on Amazon when theirs is stolen.
If you ever read the expat group on facebook, you get endless people here for 2 weeks spending more than I spend in 2 months.
The hotels in Retiro are starting to fill up again, and the chauffered black mercedes sedans are lining up in front of RapaNui.

I'm sure the lions share of tourists are middle class professionals holidaying or travelling through. If you're spending 40k to just head down south then you are in the minority. Most people don't make their money by wasting it.