According to data from the Colombian Association of Travel and Tourism (Anato), in Colombia there has been a constant tendency to increase the arrival of foreigners to our territory. While in 2007 the arrival of 1,195,000 foreigners was recorded, in 2016 this figure was 2,698,000, representing a growth of 126%, however, an even more notable positive increase was yet to come.

For 2017, thanks to political processes, advances in infrastructure and economic strength, international confidence was improved and the risk index in our country was reduced, which improved our image and led to a drastic increase in the visitor rate from abroad According to data from the Tourist Information Center of Colombia, based on DANE, during 2017 6.5 million foreigners entered Colombia, representing an increase of 28% compared to 2016 and more than 400% in Comparison with 2006, strong evidence of tourism growth and development as a product of the positive vision that the country manages. However, although tourism makes a considerable contribution to our economy in the commerce, gastronomy, hotel and transportation sectors, this contribution does not represent more than 5% of the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP). So, how many more located foreigners visit Colombia so that the tourism sector becomes the main provider of the country’s GDP?

Bogotá, Cali, Antioquia, Valle del Cauca, Bolívar, San Andrés, Santa Marta and Cartagena, the cities with the highest number of foreigners. The citizens of the United States were the ones who obtained our country most motivated by the search for unique landscapes, gastronomic variety, flora and fauna and the friendliness of the average Colombian. In addition, other countries that also contributed tourists were Brazil, France, Germany, Canada, Italy, the Netherlands and Australia, among many other visitors for whom Spanish was a foreign language.

Colombia is a country rich in culture with immense plurality of ethnicities, customs, musical rhythms, food and communities, each with its own linguistic diversity. The geographical conditions, the crops and the gastronomic offer produced by the different thermal floors make Colombia a country recognized worldwide for its privileged location with enviable tourism potential. However, due to the recent decades marked by the internal armed conflict, our country has been stigmatized and recognized abroad as a violent country and not recommended to visit by tourists from other parts of the world.

Fortunately, violence has been greatly reduced after the political processes that have led to demobilization and cessation of hostilities by some of the members who have been part of the conflict. The Peace Agreements agreed with the guerrilla of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in 2017 during the mandate of former President Juan Manuel Santos, have given us a positive impact as a society and progressively the perception that the people of the foreigners have about our country and our society, which in turn has been reflected in the opening of new opportunities directly related to tourism and the arrival of foreigners in our territory.

Such is the positive development that the Colombian State intends to make the tourism sector the main supplier of the country’s gross domestic product. The government of the current president Iván Duque (2019) that in his government plan has decided to implement a policy based on the Orange Economy, opens a new page of history for Colombians where art, culture and, especially, tourism , become an economic sector of great importance.

Colombia is a country that has 6 regions in which the Amazon region, the Andean region, the Caribbean region, the Insular region, the Orinoquía region and the Pacific region are located, in turn, these regions are divided into 32 departments each one with a geographical variety and a cultural diversity of its own. Simply move a few kilometers to any direction to find yourself in a new environment where the weather, customs and their inhabitants will be different compared to the starting point.

Colombia is considered one of the richest countries in linguistic diversity. Here, cultural plurality offers linguistic varieties where expressions, accents and lexicals manifest themselves in different ways, and in our country there are not only multiple changes in Spanish but there are also indigenous languages ​​and native communities that have their own linguistic characteristics The level of linguistic differences throughout the national territory is such that even a Colombian native from Bogotá while visiting, for example, in Santa Marta may encounter language barriers and misinterpretations in the meanings given the accent, lexicon and level of informality of the Spanish language used in the northern part of Colombia.

In our country there are 68 native languages ​​that, according to the last DANE census (2005), are spoken by approximately 850,000 people. However, in the country more than one hundred languages ​​have died in recent years and 12 languages ​​are in danger of extinction (UNESCO, 2012) because native speakers are less and less.