Argentina: Europe and North America displace Brazil as top tourism source destination

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – After nearly two years of strict restrictions, Argentina’s inbound tourism is beginning to pick up in early 2022. Official figures show that 122,000 foreign tourists arrived in January, less than half the number of visitors in a normal season, but almost double the number in December. There was also a paradigm shift: Brazil was no longer the main source of tourism during the high season, but was displaced by travelers from Europe and North America.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, Argentina was one of the Latin American countries with the strictest health measures and restrictions, and in this sense it was also one of the countries that opened its borders the latest: tourists from neighboring countries were allowed to enter in October 2021, and the rest in November. And this meant that many international flights did not resume until December.

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Nevertheless, for various reasons (including exchange rate advantages), there was latent demand, which was evident every time travel flexibility was introduced. Thus, International Tourism Statistics (ETI) figures published by the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (Indec) clearly show that there was a reactivation of inbound air traffic (which has the greatest impact on activity) in October, from 3,600 non-resident passengers in September to 13,400 in October, 47,600 in November and 72,000 in December.

The peak summer season and the certainty that the opening would not be reversed led to an explosion in arrivals in January 2022, a month in which arrivals from abroad almost doubled. Ezeiza and Aeroparque, as well as inland terminals, saw 122,100 foreign visitors arrive.

Although the number is less than half that of a “normal” season (over 300,000), the exponential projection from last October to January shows the accelerated reactivation.

One of the most striking facts of the study, however, is that the first month of 2022 saw a paradigm shift in Argentina’s historical inflow. Brazil has always been Argentina’s main trade and tourism partner and at times represented half of the country’s international tourists.

Last January, it was displaced from this traditional leadership position by passengers from Europe (34.2% of the total), from the United States and Canada (23.4%) and even by passengers from the “rest of the Americas” (14.2%), that is, from all countries except Brazil (13.7%), Uruguay, Chile, Paraguay and Bolivia.

The reasons for this phenomenon will be analyzed by the industry, but perhaps the three most obvious are the restrictions that still exist in both Brazil and Argentina, the slow reactivation of flights within the region, and the economic impact of the pandemic throughout South America.

Finally, another positive number is that of overnight stays. There were a total of 2,389,100, representing an average stay of 21 nights. Once again, Europeans were the driving force behind this growth, with an average of 25.3 nights, followed by travelers from the “rest of the Americas” with 23.3 nights.