Over the next couple of months I hope to give a flavor of the "season" in Punta del Este through periodic posts about both what happens this year and what has occurred in seasons past.
High season in Punta del Este runs from about December 20 through about January 15. After that, there's a marked fall off to a lower plateau of activity, which continues until around the end of February. There's still a fairly strong pulse in March, then the area pretty much goes into hibernation until around mid-November, when things begin building slowly toward the next high season. The tourist industry -- which is to say, everyone, since the area (and much of the country of Uruguay) lives on tourism -- keeps trying to extend the season, but so far without noticeable success.
Historically, it was fair to say that Punta's fortunes rose and fell with those of Argentina, as a very high percentage of summer visitors came from Buenos Aires. In the late 1990s, as Argentina's economic fortunes once again went into decline, to culminate in the horrendous crisis of 2001-2002, the tourism leaders of Uruguay began marketing Punta del Este heavily throughout Mexico, Central and South America, and in Spain, Italy and other parts of Europe. Simultaneously, Brazil's growing middle and upper classes began looking for something a bit more sophisticated than their own (admittedly beautiful) beach resorts, and discovered Punta del Este right next door, and knowledge of the special attractions of Jose Ignacio also began spreading by word-of-mouth around the world.
As a result, the number of Argentinean visitors declined because of the economic crisis, the number of Brazilian visitors rose dramatically, and there was a slow increase in visitors from the rest of Latin America (particularly Chile, whose economy has been strong), from Europe, and even from North America. Then, in 2005, Argentinean environmental protestors began blocking international bridges linking Argentina to Uruguay, even more severely reducing the number of Argentineans who have come to Punta del Este the last two seasons. Official Uruguayan statistics show that Argentinean visitors are off over 30% in the last two years, and close to 50% from their levels before the economic crisis, while at the same time Brazilian visitors are up an even higher percentage, and visitors from the rest of the world keep increasing steadily. Punta del Este has a much more international flavor than even a few years ago.
All of these trends are reflected by some interesting "data points" about the last two seasons and the high season just starting:
-- While the absolute number of visitors has declined (the increase in Brazilians and others has not been made up for the dramatic fall-off in the number of Argentineans), the income from the season for hotels, shops, and restaurants has risen significantly over the last two years and is expected to do so again this year. Speaking in broad generalities, Punta del Este has begun changing out some of the Argentinean middle class, with lower buying power, for more of the international crowd with higher buying buyer.
-- There is a crying shortage of both high-end hotel rooms and high-end restaurants. This is because of the transition from Argentineans, who usually came for at least two weeks and often a month, rented a house and ate most meals at home, to the more international set which comes for shorter periods and is accustomed to staying in 5-star hotels and eating out all the time. At least in season, the demand could probably justify double or even triple the number of both luxury hotels and "gourmet" restaurants that exist now; but the Catch-22 is how to make new ventures economically viable given the extremely short high season.
-- While the local municipal authorities made topless sun-bathing legal throughout the Punta del Este area around 1999 or 2000, the practice has been limited almost exclusively to the remoter beaches in Jose Ignacio, leaving aside the clothing optional beach called Chihuahua. Earlier this month, however, a couple of young Europeans doffed their bikini tops right at Parada 1 of La Mansa, which is in the heart of restaurant and condominium row at the start of the peninsula, and several other women, including some Uruguayans, quickly followed. This received a write-up in the leading Montevideo newspaper, with the conclusion of the writer being that this shows the increasing "Europeanization" of Punta del Este!
-- Whereas in earlier years the social events of the season with the largest impact have almost always been exclusively Argentinean-led, this year the biggest event is shaping up to be the wedding of Shakira, the Colombian pop music star, to the son of a previous Argentinean president, at her chacra (ranch) outside Jose Ignacio. It's sort of a "transition" event in the development of Punta del Este: half-Argentinean, half-not, with the high-wattage media interest clearly supplied by the non-Argentinean part. The Uruguayan press has also written about various other multi-tens-of-thousand-dollar private events to be hosted by high-spenders from a smorgasbord of countries, including Abu Dhabi.
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