Bitcoin Adoption Grows El Salvador's Tourism Industry By 30%

Foreign tourism arrivals in El Salvador are showing solid growth trends after the government announced in September 2021 it would accept Bitcoin as a legal tender.

Salvadoran Tourist Minister Morena Valdez said the tourism industry has expanded by over 30 percent since the Bitcoin law was passed last year.

Valdez said, "The implementation of bitcoin benefited the sector. More tourists and investors have come to see how cryptocurrency works."

"We did a poll to check the activity according to the before and after of Bitcoin. The tourism sector increased in November and December, and this increased by more than 30 percent," she said in an interview with El Salvador News English on Monday.

The minister added that El Salvador's implementation of Bitcoin has also influenced the flow of tourist trips, boosting the number of visitors from the United States. Before adopting the Bitcoin law, most tourists came from neighboring Central American nations. According to her, as many as 60 percent of visitors now come from the U.S.

The official added that El Salvador's tourism boom had surpassed the government's projections, hitting 1.4 million visitors rather than 1.1 million tourists.

"We had projected $800,000 in foreign exchange, but we obtained more than $1,400 million in foreign currency income," Valdez explained.

The announcement comes shortly after Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele claimed the country's GDP would grow by 10.3 percent in 2021. In January 2022, the country's exports, a primary economic development engine, surged 13 percent year on year.

Apart from accepting Bitcoin as legal tender, the Salvadoran government has also purchased Bitcoin on a macroeconomic basis. El Salvador now owns 1,801 BTC, worth over $68 million at today's values, following its most recent purchase in January.​