Bitcoin and Surf Boosting El Salvador’s Tourism

The world’s first Bitcoin president, Nayib Bukele of El Salvador said that the speed of which tourism in his country was able to recover post-covid, was the result of three factors: Bitcoin, a decreasing crime rate and being home to some of the best waves surfers can imagine.

Bukele said on Twitter:

“Only a handful of countries have been able to recover its tourism to pre-pandemic levels. And that’s international tourism, so the reasons behind it are mostly bitcoin and surf. But internal tourism is growing even more, mainly because of our crackdown on gangs.”

Data from the World Tourism Organization shows that El Salvador was able to bring its tourism income back to pre-pandemic levels. When compared to 2019, tourism has increased with 6%.

According to El Salvador’s minister of tourism, Morena Valdez, the country’s embrace of Bitcoin as legal tender in September of last year had led to a 30% rise in tourism as early as February this year. She had 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 before and after bitcoin. The tourism sector increased, in November and December, more than 30%”