With the largest number of golf courses in any South American country, Argentina offers 300 golf courses, for every player and taste, 138 of which are in Buenos Aires alone, and 15 premium golf-courses currently being built (some of them designed by Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Greg Norman, Mark Adams and Jonathan Gaunt).
Golf is fast becoming both a national phenomenon, with more than 100,000 players in Argentina, and an increasingly popular attraction for international tourists. This is due to a combination of the quality of the golf courses and Argentina’s other attractions – the beautiful country, culture, the wine and gastronomy.
Golf is becoming a very popular tourist attraction, especially for British golfers as the style and concept of the clubs and courses has an English heritage (The Hurlingham Club in Buenos Aires was one of the first golf courses in Argentina and that opened in the Nineteenth Century) in fact golf is one of the fastest-growing tourism sectors in Argentina and the UK is one of the leading markets.
Susan Marples, from the National Institute of Tourism Promotion, says, “We are delighted to show the great infrastructure, beautiful landscape and fantastic courses that Argentina has to offer. It is a unique opportunity for us to have direct contact with a great number of spectators that play golf and to encourage them to visit our country. We are holding meetings with UK tour operators and golf agencies to develop our alliances within this sector further.”
The UK is one of the top priority markets for the awareness-strategy of Argentina in its international marketing campaign. The growth in British tourist arrivals to Argentina has been constant from 2003 to 2008, being up more than 70 per cent in 2008 in comparison to 2003.
Argentina National Institute of Tourism Promotion www.argentina.travel
Argentine Association of Golf www.aag.com.ar