Mexico, Brazil and Argentina Lead Tourism Pack in Latin America

Over the last five years, Latin America has been the scene of sporting mega-events, such as the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 and the World Cup in 2014, also in Brazil.

As a result, there was a 6% a year increase in the number of foreigners arriving in the region. And who are these tourists from other regions who are coming to Latin America?

The most expressive group in terms of the number of trips, excluding Latin Americans themselves, are tourists from the United States and Canada, followed by some of the European countries. It is also worth pointing out the high average annual growth rates of the number of travelers coming from China in recent years.

The strong participation of the United States in the number of tourists visiting the Latin American region has to do with the country’s proximity to Mexico.

European tourists, in their turn, choose Latin American destinations – among them Brazil – because they still perceive them to be exotic and relatively cheap. Increasing numbers of Chinese tourists have been visiting Latin America because of corporate tourism, but also for the same reason they go to other regions in the world: the rise of the Chinese middle class that is increasingly willing to spend, including on travel.

Mexico is the region’s inbound tourism champion because of the flow of tourists from the United States, with Brazil and Argentina in second and third places, respectively.

There has been a significant increase in the number of trips to countries such as Chile and Colombia, which had average annual growth rates well above the other fifteen major destinations in the region. Both countries have well-structured government incentive programs for tourism; Procolombia in Colombia, and Chile Travel and Chile es TUYO in Chile.

Inbound tourism in Latin America is expected to continue growing until 2022 at an average annual rate of 4% in terms of the number of trips, largely driven by tourism promotion and incentive programs maturing in countries such as Peru, Colombia and Chile.

There is also expected to be an improvement in the profile of foreign tourists travelling to Latin American destinations as these tourists increase their average spending per trip. As a result, the expectation is that in 2022 spending by inbound tourists is likely to exceed USD 111 billion.