MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Foreign travelers keep pouring into Brazil and skipping Argentina

Even Argentine travelers prefer Brazil over their own country given the high prices under Milei

While Brazil welcomed a 14.8% growth in the number of foreign tourists in May this year from the same month of 2023, Argentina's domestic leisure travel showed a decline of nearly 65% during this past three-day weekend encompassing the June 17 National Holiday.

Brasilia's Tourism Ministry announced Monday that most of the 335,652 foreign visitors welcomed in May were from Argentina. These figures represented the highest level for the month since 2020.

In the first five months of 2024, Brazil received 3.2 million international travelers, an 8.6% improvement compared to January through May 2023, bringing additional cash to the country's hospitality, gastronomy, and transport, Tourism Minister Celso Sabino explained.

“With these promising figures, Brazil reinforces its image of topping the list of the most desired destinations in Latin America,” he underlined. “The sector is expected to continue to grow in the coming months, especially with the organization of important events such as the G20 Summit, and Rock in Rio,” he added. This drive “has an impact on economic development and job creation in the country,” Sabino also noted.

Behind the some 1.1 million visitors from Argentina came 298,000 from the United States, followed by Chile's 294,000.

Last weekend in Argentina only saw some 802,000 people traveling to domestic destinations spending AR$ 81.464 million, far below Carnival expenditures which amounted to over AR$ 352 billion, the Argentine Confederation of Medium-Sized Companies (CAME) said. Daily expenditures of around AR$ 50,788 (around US$ 50) represented a year-on-year 3.4% decrease, with inflation deducted.

In addition, Father's Day sales went down 10.2% this year as the country heads for an even longer 4-day weekend starting Thursday. According to Came, Father's Day was the main attraction this past weekend, during which people made short trips and preferred family gatherings to longer trips.

To make matters worse for the industry, “a factor that detracted dynamism from the movement of the weekend was the fall of international tourism, which, although still latent, is not seen in the magnitudes of previous months,” CAME explained.

Under President Javier Milei, prices went up so much that Argentina has managed to curb inflation at the price of becoming unaffordable for both locals and foreigners alike.