Would You Like the Good News First? Money & Visa Updates

In the context of southern South America, two topics about which I often write are money and visas, and on both I have good news and bad news. Here, today, I’ll deal with the two topics separately.

MONEY

Less than two weeks ago, I dealt with the issue of Argentina’s ATMs and the fact that they’re such a quilombo (a slang term, meaning a mess, that derives from an earlier usage that meant a brothel). I haven’t used an ATM in that time but good news is that, according to The Wall Street Journal’s local correspondent Taos Turner, Argentine banks have raised the limit for individual transactions to A$3,300 (about US$192; when I made my last withdrawal, I could only obtain A$2,000, about US$143). This is a step forward, though it still doesn’t come close to the permitted amounts from Chilean and Uruguayan ATMs.

For foreign account-holders, the cost of an Argentine ATM transaction rose by 67 percent in November.

The bad news is that the banks have raised their transaction charge to A$175 (almost exactly US$10), as opposed to the previous charge of A$106.20 (about US$6). That sounds bad, and it is, but with the new withdrawal limit that amounts to only 5.3 percent as opposed the earlier 5.31 percent. In Argentine banking, that appears to count as progress…

VISAS

In visa matters, the news is better, especially for Australians and Canadians. Early last year, Argentina suspended its so-called “reciprocity fee” for US visitors, in hopes that Argentines would gain access to the United States’ Visa Waiver Program, which permits cheaper and more expeditious travel to the Colossus of the North. That, however, occurred before a far more xenophobic administration took over the US government, and Chile remains the only South American country eligible for the Visa Waiver (unless you want to count Guyane, which is an overseas département of France). In principle, if the US refuses to reciprocate, Argentina could reinstate the fee for US visitors.

Soon, both Australian and Canadian visitors will be exempt from Argentina's "reciprocity" fee.

Recently, however, it’s taken steps in the other direction. The previous Argentine administration had also inflicted “reciprocity” fees on Australians and Canadians, but the current government eliminated the fee for Aussies last July, and has taken steps to to do so for Canadians by the first of the year. Nationals of both countries will find one less obstacle if they desire to visit Buenos Aires and beyond.

Brazil is also making it a bit easier to visit that country although, in my opinion, it still has a long way to go. I’ve not crossed the Brazilian border in some time, but applying for a Brazilian visa has always been inconvenient. It used to involve going in person but, when I tried to do so in Buenos Aires, the consulate there informed me that they could not issue a visa because my intended visit was too far in the future (to the best of my memory, it was two or three months before). I was able to get one-day service at the Puerto Iguazú consulate, to cross to the Brazilian side of the falls, but they would only accept payment in Argentine pesos, even though the visa fee was advertised in US dollars.

For US passport holders, the pleasure of a day-trip from Argentina to Brazil's side of Iguazú Falls will still cost US$160.

Now, though, intending visitors can apply for the visa online, but the Brazilians are still missing an opportunity that the Argentines are taking advantage of—eliminating the visa entirely would do much more to encourage travel to South America’s largest country. In fact, the Brazilians did so briefly last year, when they suspended all tourist visa requirements during the Olympics.

The argument, of course, is that as long as the US and other countries oblige Brazilians to obtain advance visas, it’s only fair Brazil should require the same for citizens of those countries. To some degree I sympathize with that argument and, as an advocate of open borders, I think US visa requirements are far too restrictive. That said, from a purely pragmatic viewpoint, Brazil gains nothing from subjecting potential visitors to bureaucratic obstacles. Argentina appears to have learned that lesson.

Undoing Argentina's "Reciprocity" Mess

In late 2009, Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s administration imposed a tourism “reciprocity fee” for passport holders from the United States, Canada and Australia, who can no longer simply arrive at the airport (or other border) and automatically expect a stamp in their documents (as shown below).

On the face of it, this was a just measure - those countries require visas for Argentine citizens, who must pay for the privilege of merely applying to the US (US$160), Australia (US$100) and Canada (US$100). That visa process often involves traveling great distances for a consular interview. My own brother-in-law and his wife, who are presently visiting California, also had to make a special trip to Buenos Aires from their home in northern Patagonia – at additional expense in time and money - for a perfunctory interview at the US consulate in Palermo.

In this context, requiring comparable fees for visitors from the US and countries with similar policies was never unfair. One might even argue that the Argentine policy was relatively liberal, since it never required those visitors to seek an advance visa. Still, I would suggest that the reciprocity fee was (and is) a foolish and counter-productive measure that has made Argentina a less than welcoming destination to many potential visitors.

As the new Argentine administration of Mauricio Macri has taken power, it has already eliminated multiple exchange rates and the “currency clamp,” both of which had caused confusion and problems for visitors who, however, still cannot withdraw money from local ATMs except on disadvantageous terms, and must often carry large amounts of US and Argentine cash. That’s an important step forward for the tourism sector, but it should also eliminate the “reciprocity fee” as soon as possible.

There are many good reasons to eliminate it. In the first place, it adds to the cost of visiting a destination that is already expensive to reach because of distance – for a family of four from the US, it means an extra US$640 diverted to the Argentine treasury rather than circulating in the economy at large. In the second instance, paying the fee requires opening an account with an unfamiliar payment system to which potential visitors may not wish to surrender personal information online. Third, the arriving visitor must show an easily lost or misplaced printout of the transaction.

A Chilean-born friend (with US and Canadian passports), who leads tours into Argentina, described the process and its pitfalls for me as: “cumbersome but doable, it was not always clear what the next step was but I got through it. Largely I succeeded because I have done a lot of payments online, but this one had its slight oddities. I am not sure a little old lady from the Midwest who does not get on the computer a lot will be able to adequately manage this.” He also noted that the English-language version was clumsily unprofessional: “The oddities are mainly some of language, where you have to know to ‘add form’ and ‘print ticket’ instead of ‘upload data’ and ‘print receipt’ or something that makes more sense.”

While none of these may be an insuperable obstacle – visitors from all three countries have not disappeared - they cannot compare with the simplicity of arriving at Ezeiza or a land border and simply having your passport stamped. On the positive side, the fee is valid for ten years, but even that’s not totally positive. In my case, since I travel to Argentina every year, the annual amortization amounts to only US$16, but it does require me to carry the expired passport with proof of payment (at the time, I was able to pay on arrival at Ezeiza, which is no longer possible). My dual passports invariably confuse immigration officers, especially at remote border crossings in Patagonia, because their numbers are different.

Those are short term considerations, but I think the Fernández de Kirchner administration also struck out on a key longer-term perspective. One booming sector of the travel and tourism sector is youth travel, as evidenced by the proliferation of hostels that cater to students and other budget travelers. Their absolute monetary contribution to the economy may be smaller than luxury accommodations and gourmet restaurants, but it often goes to needier providers, such as snack bars, and neighborhood restaurants and grocers. Today’s budget backpackers, though, are tomorrow’s prosperous professionals and, if they have a good experience now, they’re likely to return when their financial resources are far greater. Repeat visitors are better than one-timers.

This, in my opinion, is a missed opportunity. Certainly some of those travelers have made their way to Argentina, but we can speculate that others have bypassed Argentina for, say, Chile – which eliminated its reciprocity fee in 2013. To some degree, of course, Argentina’s reciprocity fee – which I often refer to as a “retaliation fee” - owes its origins to the recent administration’s impulsive politics and awkward relations with the United States, to the detriment of visitors and Argentina’s own future.

Along with the reform of multiple exchange rates, unilateral elimination of the “reciprocity fee” would bring in part of the valuable foreign exchange that the country needs to reactivate its economy. It would be a major step toward improving Argentina’s competitiveness and, in this context, it’s worth noting that Brazil will suspend its advance visa requirements during the upcoming 2016 Olympics.

What Time Is It? Chile Declines To Reset Its Clocks

In less than a week, the northern hemisphere’s summer solstice will bring the longest day of the year – in Northern California, where I am spending the season, sunrise will occur at 5:47 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time and sunset at 8:34 p.m. A hemisphere away in Chile, though, things will be very different despite the current government’s measure to institute daylight savings time throughout the year – presumably to reduce energy consumption in a country that still imports nearly all of its fossil fuels.

Whether daylight savings time is actually an energy saving measure is debatable, but the general topic is interesting here. Personally, while traveling in Chile, I’ve always preferred daylight savings because I could get breakfast earlier, with more daylight to explore the cities and the countryside (some accommodations will not serve breakfast until 9 a.m.) while researching my books. Also, because of the country’s string-bean geography, it consists of a single time zone (with one notable exception), so that daylight hours vary dramatically in different parts of the country.

Traditionally, daylight savings started in December and ended in March (in time for the new school year), but it’s gradually expanded. Now, with uniform time throughout the year, this morning’s sunrise in the coastal city of Valparaíso – whose landmark clock tower the Reloj Turri appears above – was at 8:46 a.m., with sunset at 6:47 p.m. Valparaíso’s latitude is roughly comparable to that of San Francisco.

Farther north, though, it’s a rather different story because, in subtropical latitudes far closer to the Equator, the length of day varies little throughout the year. Today’s sunrise at the remote settlement of Pisagua – a tiny seaside community that was once a thriving nitrate port – was at 8:11 a.m., with sunset at 7:10 p.m. The structure above is Pisagua’s own historic clock tower, though the clock itself no longer functions.

By contrast, in the southern city of Punta Arenas, this morning’s sunrise did not take place until 9:55 a.m., with sunset at 5:33 p.m. At a latitude comparable to British Columbia’s Moresby Island, Punta Arenas enjoys long summer days but, at this time of year, children are arriving at school well before daybreak. Today, the modest clock outside the city’s Muelle Prat commercial pier is probably covered with snow.

For most visitors, Chile’s time change has one big advantage. I’ve written before on the jetlag issue when traveling to southernmost South America, and this changes things a bit, for the better. Effectively, Argentina and Chile are now in the same time zone – four hours behind GMT or UTC – which will simplify scheduling on trips that require border crossings. It also means that, when most of the United States is on daylight savings time from early March until November, Argentina and Chile will be on the same schedule at the US East Coast. Though it may still be a long overnight flight from anywhere in the US, that eliminates or at least reduces the jetlag problem.

Of course, there remains that one exception I mentioned above. Chile’s Pacific outlier of Easter Island (pictured above) is five hours and two times zones west of the South American mainland.