From Lima to Machu Picchu: The Cable Cars That Could Revolutionize Tourism and Mobility in Peru

Austria's Doppelmayr/Garaventa Group, the world's largest ropeway manufacturer, is pursuing what could become the most aggressive cable car expansion in South American history—a pipeline stretching across Lima, Cusco, and Puno with a combined price tag exceeding $1.2 billion and projects at every stage from concept to active tender.

The company's strategic positioning came into sharp focus on October 20, when Alex Baumgartner, Operations Manager at Doppelmayr Perú SAC, spoke to Peruvian business daily Gestión about every initiative the Austrian firm is tracking in the country. The interview revealed a company with clear commercial ambitions and an equally clear-eyed view of the obstacle standing between those ambitions and steel towers in the ground.

Eight Presidents, One Consistent Problem

When Doppelmayr set up its local office in Peru in 2017, the country was on its second leader of the decade. By 2026, it has worked through eight presidents—a frequency of change that Baumgartner said has directly derailed the company's projects and frightened away foreign capital.

The most visible casualty was the Cerro San Cristóbal cable car in Lima, which collapsed under successive administration changes compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic. That history shapes why Doppelmayr's entire Peru pipeline is less an engineering question than a political one.

"Not having certainty that you'll finish a project with one administration—and then losing time convincing new authorities to advance it again—is a very big risk for private investors," Baumgartner said.

Choquequirao: The World-Record Project Still Waiting for a Winner

The most advanced project in Doppelmayr's Peru pipeline is the Choquequirao Tourism Complex, straddling the Cusco–Apurímac border. The concession covers three cable cars spanning 10.6 km, a fleet of buses, and road access, with a total investment estimated at US$261 million. The winning consortium will be required to design, finance, build, and operate all infrastructure for 25 years.

Today, reaching this largely unexcavated Inca citadel requires a trek lasting more than two days. The cable car would reduce that journey to 20 minutes, pushing annual visitor numbers from roughly 8,000 to more than one million. Peru's Ministry of Economy and Finance projects the project will inject S/400 million annually into the national economy—representing 1.1% of Cusco's GDP and 2.8% of Apurímac's.

ProInversión officially launched the international public tender in August 2026, initially targeting a contract award in Q4 of that same year. However, Baumgartner told Gestión that the timeline has since slipped to the first quarter of 2027. Recent revisions to the bidding terms now allow Doppelmayr to compete as the electromechanical systems supplier—covering manufacturing, installation, and commissioning—rather than as the lead concessionaire.

"Choquequirao is a monster," Baumgartner told Gestión. "Once it's built, it will break several world records."

Huchuy Qosqo: Fully Funded, Waiting on a Single Permit

In the Sacred Valley of Cusco, a separate and entirely private initiative is stalled at a different kind of bureaucratic junction. Doppelmayr holds a 25% stake in the Huchuy Qosqo cable car, a 100% privately financed project whose primary remaining step is securing a building permit from the Calca municipality in Cusco. Baumgartner declined to estimate when that approval would come or when construction could begin.

The project's commercial logic rests on demand studies by Macroconsult and the absence of any comparable cable system in the entire Sacred Valley tourist corridor—one of Peru's highest-traffic heritage circuits and, currently, a market with no direct competition for this type of infrastructure.

Lima: The Billion-Dollar Prize Still in Design Phase

The largest single opportunity lies in Lima and Callao, where the Urban Transport Authority's portfolio covers eight urban cable lines totaling 46.8 km, with a projected beneficiary population of 950,000 people and an estimated investment of US$958 million, according to an ATU presentation from April 2026.

The network's priority first line would link San Juan de Lurigancho to San Martín de Porres in 18 minutes, running through Independencia and Rímac with integration points into the Metro de Lima and the Metropolitano BRT—a corridor that currently takes close to an hour by road. According to the TomTom Traffic Index 2025, Lima commuters lost 195 hours to peak-hour congestion in 2025—15 hours more than the previous year—ranking the city as the worst in the world for time lost to traffic.

Doppelmayr is tracking these projects closely but will not submit bids at this stage: participating in preliminary studies or design phases would disqualify the company from future contracts as a supplier. "Once the tender comes out," Baumgartner confirmed, "we will definitely participate."

Puno: Viable as of August 2026, Now Entering Structuring

On August 21, 2026, ProInversión declared viable the investment profile for the Cerro Azoguini–Lake Titicaca cable car. The planned 2,020-meter route would carry passengers from the Titicaca lakefront to a summit viewpoint in roughly five and a half minutes. Annual visitors are projected to surge from 7,416 today to more than 404,000 at launch, and beyond 530,000 within 20 years of operation.

The investment is estimated at S/236.5 million (approximately US$64 million) and will be structured as a public-private partnership. The project is now in the structuring phase—developing financing terms and contract design—ahead of a future public tender. Baumgartner estimated that both the Puno project and the parallel Teleférico Huascarán in Áncash could become operational within the next four years, provided incoming regional governments sustain momentum.

Lima's Only Working Cable Car: A 320-Meter Proof of Concept

Every project on this list exists against a single completed benchmark: the Vaivén Miraflores cable car—Lima's first operational cable car. Built with Doppelmayr technology and delivered to the client in August 2026, Vaivén spans approximately 320 meters across the Costa Verde cliffs in a three-minute ride, carrying up to 15 passengers per cabin at a final private investment of more than US$10 million. It is a tourist showcase rather than a mass-transit solution, but it is the only proof of concept in a market still learning to build and run cable systems at scale.

For the billion-dollar pipeline behind it to move from proposals to steel towers, Peru will need to deliver what it has rarely managed in a decade of cable car ambition: finishing what it starts.

© {{Year}} Latin Times. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.