A little more information became available today from the Interior Minister Florencio Randazzo. The draft regulation will become Immigration Act #25,871, and will come into force on January 1, 2009. Randazzo said that no tourists would stop coming because of the tax ... and that the government hoped to reap 40 million pesos in revenue.

Apparently tourism officials and embassies were caught completely off guard when these proposed regulations were leaked on Monday.

It was specifically mentioned that US citizens would pay US$131, and Australians US$100 per person. For Canadians, the fees would be $245 for a single person, $485 for multiple entry, and $1295 for a family group.

La Nacion raises the issue that since this is not technically a visa, some tourists might have to pay every time they enter Argentina.

In 2007, 286,240 Americans (ranked 2nd), 32,925 Canadians (ranked 14th), and 24,428 Australians (ranked 18th) entered Argentina via EZE.

http://www.infobae.com/contenidos/40...-exijan-visado
http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=1057264

The visa requirements for Argentines travelling to some countries is completely spurious to the discussion. It's solely a concern whether tourism will be negatively affected by these regulations, which I believe it will. It seems inevitable that tourism from other countries (even those not subject to the new tax), will be decreased given the global economic problems. Specifically I would suspect that Brazilians who rank #1 will be much less likely to visit given the economic turmoil in that country, and the devaluation of the real, making it a more expensive destination for them.

John