Consumer spending in Maldonado department went up 9.4% between the months of March and May, compared with the same quarter of 2008, according to figures quoted by El Pais and attributed to an entity called the Observatorio Turistico, a joint venture between various local chambers of commerce.
It appears that we're inching towards a greater availability of economic data in general, and the news article in El Pais yesterday (long and confusing, but here it is) brings a new indicator of economic activity in Maldonado, this time measuring consumption of basic items such as water, electricity and gasoline, aimed at detecting the ups and downs of the tourism business in the department. Well, at least new to me.
The biggest increases were seen in April, which this year included the Easter holiday, usually falling in March. And yet, to everyone's shock, throughout the quarter consumption of food, fuels, water and other staples increased at more than respectable rates. For March and April taken together, the percentage climbs to 10.7%.
In addition to the calendar explanation --which doesn't account for the entire quarter anyway-- the Observatorio attributed the increased activity to uncharacteristically benign weather throughout the quarter. Considering the early spring we're going through, the same should be expected for the last quarter.Three cheers for global warming.
Now the bad news: there was a marked decrease in the number of foreign tourists who visited in Easter, with Brazilians down 10.5%, Paraguayans down 5%, Argentines 4.6%, and with only Chileans increasing by 30%. Now how do I spin this, considering my ever positive taint on anything and everything? It's actually GREAT NEWS! because Chileans are not a "traditional" market for us and their continued expansion is just what the doctor ordered for hedging purposes, and the others, well, they will come out of their global-crisis-shock and resume their increased visits and expenditure in our shores.
Unfortunately no mention was made of foreign visitors throughout the quarter ex-Easter, and there, I would venture, may lie part of the explanation for the positive figures. From what we could see, them Argies would not go away! They came all year long! Then again, this may be just our excessively heightened traffic-plate-spotting awareness talking.
Now, if someone were to combine this data with the real-estate information, then we'd be on to something...
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