Audley Travel’s head of Latin America, Mark Garrett, told delegates at Experience Latin America in London last week the operator was currently experiencing unprecedented demand for the continent.

“We have 25,000 repeat clients and, this year, 25% of them have organically asked us for Latin America; it’s very high on consumers’ radar,” he said.

Garrett added the increasing popularity of Latin America with backpackers and gap-year travellers, in preference to south-east Asia, was in turn encouraging their parents to visit the region and making it easier to recruit sales consultants who have travelled extensively there.

However, the importance of limiting the socio-economic and environmental impact of tourism in the region was also on the agenda, with delegates debating the idea of increasing prices at major tourist attractions to limit numbers.

Steppes Travel’s managing director Justin Wateridge said Latin America could learn from the example of gorilla trekking in Rwanda.

“Fifteen years ago, it cost $150 to visit the Galapagos and $250 to see gorillas in Rwanda,” he said. “Today, it costs $1,500 to visit the gorillas but the Galapagos costs the same. Look at how well gorillas are doing now.”

However, Quinn Meyer, founder of Peruvian conservation organisation Crees, said he thought pricing lower-budget tourists out of the market could be unethical.

“If we made it $2,000 to visit Machu Picchu, are we actually restricting access to a very important cultural site to just the rich?” he asked.