Argentine Visionary Hopes To Become a Tourism King.

Argentina's Eduardo Eurnekian is a hard-charging visionary who has built an almost $1 billion media empire in the past decade. Now, this local version of Citizen Kane wants to become Argentina's tourism king.

Earlier this month, a consortium led by Mr. Eurnekian won a 30-year concession to run 33 of the country's main airports. He has bought the Howard Johnsons master franchise for Argentine from Cendant Corp. of the U.S. and plans to pepper this vast country with U.S.-style hotels and motels. And he's engaged in talks to invest in a regional airline company.

"Tourism is going to be a geometric growth business in Argentina," says the 65-year-old Mr. Eurnekian in a rare interview. He says the Argentina of today is like the U.S. of the Eisenhower era: a place of newly affluent people who, coming out of years of hardship, want to stretch their legs. "The demand for U.S.-style and U.S.-quality services will be fantastic."

It had better be, given the size of the commitments made by Mr. Eurnekian and his partners in the airport deal. Together with New York-based ground-services giant Ogden Corp. and Italy's Assaeroporti SpA, the operator of Milan airport, Mr. Eurnekian's Corp. America Sudamericana SA has pledged to pay more than $5 billion to the government and to make $2.2 billion in new investments during the life of the concession. Currently, only two of the 33 airports are profitable and even those are in need of a major overhaul.