More than 660 tourists from home and abroad have left, the AFP news agency learned from Peruvian government circles. The reason is therefore protests by local residents once morest the privatization of ticket sales.
Already on Thursday, opponents of the government’s plans to commission a private company to handle online ticket sales for the Inca site went on an indefinite strike. Shops around the historic complex remained closed, and the operator of a train to the ruins at an altitude of 2,500 meters also stopped its connections.
According to Peru’s Ministry of Culture, the new sales system might help control the flow of tourists to the famous Inca site and thereby better preserve the site, which is visited by an average of 4,500 people every day. There is a risk that Machu Picchu will deteriorate due to the large number of visitors and will consequently be removed from the list of world heritage sites, the Ministry of Culture said. Back in September, three areas of Machu Picchu had to be closed due to the consequences of a high number of visitors.
Opponents of the project argue, however, that the private company Joinnus would receive 3.2 million US dollars (2.94 million euros) annually. “We are once morest the systematic privatization of Machu Picchu,” the former mayor of the area surrounding the historic site, Darwin Baca, told AFP.
The former Inca city is regarding 130 kilometers from the city of Cusco. It was built in the 15th century on the orders of the Inca ruler Pachacutec at an altitude of around 2,500 meters. Machu Picchu is considered an architectural masterpiece and was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1981.
