By Lise Alves, Senior Contributing Reporter
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – With the strong depreciation of the Brazilian real in relation to the U.S. dollar in the last few months, fewer Brazilians are traveling abroad and those who do are spending less money on their destinations.
According to data released on Monday (August 27th) by Brazil’s Central Bank (BC), expenses by Brazilians abroad reached US$1.731 billion in July, a reduction of 7.9 percent, compared to July of 2017 (US$1.879 billion).
“The [travel] budget tends to be made in national currency. Therefore the behavior of the exchange rate will affect spending abroad,” the deputy head of the BC’s Statistics Department, Fernando Lemos told government news agency Agencia Brasil.
In the first seven months of the year, however, total spending is at US$11.304 billion, still higher than in the first seven months of 2017 when spending reached US$10.684 billion.
With the devaluation of the national currency, travel agencies scramble not to lose their clients, by changing their clients’ itineraries, from abroad to national destinations and increasing payment installment plans.
CVC, one of Brazil’s largest travel agencies, says that in the last few months seventy percent of their clients have opted for domestic travel, while 30 percent have chosen bear the brunt of the unfriendly foreign exchange rate and travel abroad.
“In times of stable dollar, this division is sixty percent for national and forty percent for international,” CVC representative told news magazine Veja last week.
Despite the decrease of expenses in foreign travel, the total spent by Brazilians abroad continues to be higher than the revenues from foreigners in Brazil.
In July foreigners spent US$417 million in Brazil and in the first seven months of the year the total was of US$3.657 billion.