Brazil is on track to break its record for the most foreign tourists, with authorities projecting that the South American nation will record 6.8 million foreign tourists in 2024. The figure surpasses 2019’s total by half a million visitors, reports Diário de Notícias.
In the first 10 months, Brazil recorded more than 5.4 million international visitors, an increase of 1.34 percent over the same period last year. Such robust figures put the country on track to beat its previous record of 6.3 million in 2023. The bulk of foreign tourists come from neighbouring Argentina (over 1.58 million), the US (over 572,000) and Chile (518,345). Brazil is also seeing more long-haul visitors as European countries account for a combined 829,320.
Next year, the country reportedly aims to welcome 7.1 million foreign tourists, a modest increase of around 4 percent and well below the double-digit growth seen this year.
[See more: Brazil and China want to improve their air connectivity]
The rise in foreign tourists in the first 10 months of 2024 injected over US$6 billion into the Brazilian economy, figures show, up 5.9 percent over the same period last year. It also represents the highest value since records began back in 1995.
One of the biggest challenges in growing the number of foreign tourists is Brazil’s distance from the markets that concentrate the largest number of travellers. Tourism minister Celso Sabino noted that “the majority of tourists [in Brazil] stay within 500 kilometres” of their home countries. This is born out in the numbers with most foreign tourists coming from neighbouring Argentina and Chile, and domestic tourists accounting for the bulk of Brazil’s tourism market. The Ministry of Tourism expects to see 65 million Brazilians travel within the country in 2025, over nine times the record number of foreign tourists the ministry is aiming for next year.
“We are in a very promising moment, with Brazil being seen and remembered out there,” Sabino remarked in a ministry press release. “Our foreign policy and our prominence on important global agendas has reinforced the image of the country. This fosters tourism, values national potentialities and makes foreigners want to live this experience.”
