At least she has seen Russia from her house.

I had missed this before, and I have to say that this kind of thinking is just shallow and shows a complete lack of understanding for tourism economics. Why dont you tell the Government of Indonesia, or Thailand, Mexico, or the Phillipines that "cheap tourists" dont grow the Economy..???!!!! :rolleyes:

If you want to attract a decent amount of tourism over the long term, you need to first become an established tourism destination. The high spending traveler will eventually come, if you have the right things to see and decent infrastructure, etc. However, enacting silly measures that only give folks the excuse to look elsewhere and consider taking their business to other latitudes does nothing to establish the country as a tourism hub.

As a closing note.... it also doesnt help to welcome folks to your country if you call them "cheap"..... please remember that people will enjoy visiting your country (and giving you free advertising in the way of word of mouth) if you treat them with warmth, respect and a smile.... it may be better not to insult them.

I'm bummed..my wife and I are headed to Argentina next Spring, and definitely would have taken the visa into consideration when picking our destination. I had already eliminated a side-trip to Brazil as a result of their visa fees.

We're still going, but I guess it's $262 (= 786 pesos) less that we'll have to spend on our vacation.

I expect that Australians also will be victims of reciprocity but I don't know what we charge Argentinians for an Australian visa.

What I do know is that on my four trips a year primarily to Brazil I usually stop for 3-4 days each way in Buenos Aires. That's 8 stops spending around $US1000 each time. If I factor in $132 for a reciprocity fee on top of $25 for airport user fee, ?$30 Argentinian departure tax, $30-40 in airport transfers - its probably enough to tip the scale for me and encourage me to just transfer directly in EZE and spend the extra few days in Brazil.

Chile charges US$61, so I'd expect that Australia charges Argentinos the same as Chilenos.

I think we need to be cautious about multiplying the costs... it seems that these entry visas would be valid for a certain time period.... so direct multiplication of costs is probably not correct.

The only thing that has changed is the reciprocity fee and it seems that one fee will last for several years and will not be payable each time you visit. Your departure tax of $18 and the other costs you mention are the same as always so your only extra cost is the reciprocity fee (US$61 has been mentioned). If your spend is around $8000, how can a fee that represents about 0.75% of this amount realistically have any impact on your decision to visit Argentina?

In Chile, the details outside of the cost do vary by country.

Unlike Canadian and US passport holders, for Australians, the fee IS NOT GOOD FOR LIFE OF PASSPORT. It is only good for 90 days.

Some in this thread seem to believe that if you are paying to fly all the way to Argentina and paying for hotels etc, that nobody would avoid the trip to Argentina simply because of the visa reciprocity fee.

This is absolutely incorrect. Many people will choose another destination.

Some in the thread don't take care with their budgets or realize that many smart travelers do take care. In these days of tight budgets, who is going to waste over $100 on a tit for tat fee when there are plenty of choices of countries to be visited that don't have these fees? I already avoid much of South America because of nuisance fees. My tourism dollar can stay home, it can go to Central America, or it can go to Canada. And to those who think the budget tourist is of no value to the economy, I would simply say that a study by the Australian government proved this to be wrong, as they discovered that a significant source of tourist income came from backpackers and gap year types, who have to considered the ULTIMATE budget travelers. Many tourists are younger, or have families, or are retired, and folks in all of those categories must watch their spending. If you want to wait and market your destination only to the top 4% of travelers, well, that's not a very smart move, because you are then at the whim of the changing fads and fashions of the very rich.

There is also the concern of how the fee might be collected. Does it involve standing in another line? Does it actually involve shipping your passport off somewhere and going through the farce of having your visa added to the passport for an additional shipping/mailing fee? Who knows? I don't. What I do know is that the more hassle you make it to visit your country, the more likely I am to go to Panama or Canada instead. I saw all the hoops my mother had to jump to go on a South America cruise, if she actually wanted to visit the ports, and no. Just no. Why do all this when I can just step off the boat with no worries in the Western Caribbean?

The fee won't punish the expensive hotel where some expense account is paying the price anyway. My guess is that it will punish the small, independently owned hotels and B&Bs because the budget travelers will be pushed elsewhere.

It is wrong and unfair for the U.S. to charge such fees. What is to be gained by another country copying a wrong, unfair policy? You see how well it's working out for us and how much "growth" and financial success we've had since we've had the current Kafka-esque crazies in charge of things. Why on earth would anyone want to copy a proven losing formula?

I presume you are including me in the "some in this thread". I don't see how my opinion can be "absolutely incorrect". Please elaborate.

Saying that nobody will change their plans as a result of this fee is not realistic and from what I have read here, noone has suggested that. Where the difference of opinion lies is in how much of an impact this fee will actually have. Some (like me) believe the impact will be relatively insignificant (less than 10% of travellers avoiding Argentina as a result of this change). Others are more pessimistic and think the effect will be a lot bigger. Either way, we are expressing opinions here so noone is "right" or "wrong".

Even a 5% fall in tourist numbers would not be considered relatively insignificant by anyone involved in the tourist industry.

My main beef about these reciprocity fees is not that they are not justifiable in some sort of way - they can be justified. The question really is will it benefit Argentina. Is the government going to inflict economic harm on its shareholders (citizens) and if so will this be offset by another overiding benefit. I just don't see that imposing a reciprocity fee on Americans,Australians,etc will have any benefit for Argentinians. It won't change those countires visa policies and it will in some way, whether it be 2,3 or 5% or some other number, decrease tourist revenue translating into decreased employment etc.

Excellent post..... perhaps the most important point is that no matter what fee Argentina imposes.... the US will not change its Visa requirement policy. This plus the obvious loss of revenue for the local Economy makes it even more clear that this measure is plain nonsense.

I do think there will be an impact on US tourism with a $131 entrance fee. I used to take my family (5 of us) to Chile on holiday and haven't done so since the fee topped $100 each. FWIW, we don't really pay for our tickets to South America, using frequent flyer miles instead. So this is a very noticable expense to us.

My wife and I go to BA practically every year. We're going next month again. Much of what motivates our visits is economics -- where can we get bang for our travel buck? When the Peso is strong, we visit less often (Europe starts looking better!). If it's going to cost us $131 to get in, we'll visit less often. I'm sure we won't go in 2009 under such circumstances.

I understand why countries impose reciprocal entrance fees. It's human nature to go tit-for-tat. Of course, "equality" isn't really justified. The US fee is high partly to pay for the interview/review process because, like it or not, foreigners sometimes come to the US under pretense of tourism and then stay. There's no interview process here -- just the payment of cold hard cash.

Now you can argue that the US entry rules are misguided, and that the application fee should be lower -- heck, I argue that every time I have to go down to the Post Office to renew my kids passports at a substantially higher fee because there's a "stupid" concern that the cheaper mail-in provision would encourage parental child abduction -- but that's a different story entirely.

At the end of the day, Argentina should do what's best for Argentina. I do not believe Argentina will benefit from charging American visitors $131. Visitor numbers will go down. If they want to express their displeasure, charge Americans $25 each. That will generate revenue, without scaring off the tourists.

Argentina could institute an $500 exit visa fee for Argentines going to Punta this summer - that would increase domestic tourist revenues a lot.