Peru welcomed 3.42 million international tourists in 2025 — up 4.9%, still below the 2019 peak, yet spending a record $5.35 billion — and two in three of them entered through Lima's airport, increasingly staying for the table.
Lima is not just the capital of Peruvian tourism — it is its port of entry: 2.16 million of the country's international visitors cleared immigration at Jorge Chávez in 2024, 66.2% of the total. The classic itinerary — land in Lima, fly to Cusco, return — gives the city at least two nights of nearly every trip, and the new 40-million-passenger terminal was built for the growth curve ahead.
The market mix is regional first: Chile supplies one visitor in five, the United States 18%, Ecuador and Colombia close behind, and Europe — Spain, France, Germany — the long-haul layer. July is the peak month (317,000 arrivals countrywide in 2025) on the Independence Day and dry-season rush; Lima's own season is inverted — its sunny summer runs December to April, exactly when the Andes are wet.
The honest ledger: 2025's 3.42 million visitors remain 22% below 2019's 4.37 million — the pandemic, then the 2022–23 protests around Cusco, slowed a comeback that Colombia and Chile have already completed; the WTTC does not see full recovery before 2031. Machu Picchu's daily caps — 4,500 on regular dates, 5,600 on peak ones — put a structural ceiling on the classic funnel.
But the money already recovered: record receipts of $5.35 billion in 2025, 10% up on 2024 and well above 2019's $4.7 billion, from visitors staying ten nights and spending $1,232 on average. The shift is deliberate — fewer, longer, higher-spending trips — and Lima, with four of the world's 50 best restaurants, is where that strategy cashes in.
Our read: give Lima the nights it earns. The standard two-night transit sells the city short — three to four nights lets the museums, the malecón and the restaurants breathe, and December to April turns the coast luminous while the Andes pour. Book the headliner tables when you book the flights, keep July for the mountains not the coast, and don't fear the gray winter: ceviche season is all twelve months.
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