Now Machu Picchu has welcomed tourists. This popular destination has been closed for eight months due to the pandemic.
Quoted from Fox News, when it opened on Friday (6/11 /), this ancient city of Incas in the Andes Mountains received only 675 tourists per day. The capacity limitation represents only 30 percent of the number of tourists who arrived before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Machu Picchu is a destination for an Inca fortress since the 15th century, located on top of a mountain with 7,970 feet height. During the reopening, a light show and Inca rituals are held.
“Today, Machu Picchu opened. (This place) opened with health and safety protocol. We are active again but with great responsibility and caution, because we see everything that is happening in the world,” the Minister of Foreign Trade and Tourism, Rocio Barrios, said in a speech.
Meanwhile, the global tourism industry is affected by the pandemic, even thousands of people have lost their jobs. The head of the local hotel and restaurant association, Joaquin Randall, told AFP that prior to Covid-19 there were 80 hotels in the Cusco region, koya Ollantaytambo, but now half of them are bankrupt.
Before it opened to the public, last month Machu Picchu was opened only to one tourist who came from Japan. He came to Peru since last March to visit this Inca fortress. Unable to go home, a tourist named Jesse Katayama was stranded for seven months.