Between April and December this year, 9.7 million seats were scheduled on international flights to Brazil, an increase of 26% or 2 million new seats compared to the same period last year. The information is contained in a report by the Brazilian Agency for International Tourism Promotion (Embratur), with data from ForwardKeys, one of the leading providers of travel data analysis in the world.
“It is useless to show foreign tourists how wonderful our country is if they cannot buy a ticket and come visit us. Air connectivity has always been one of the main bottlenecks for the growth of international tourism and the good news is that we are making great progress in these first three months. Only last week we started the dialogue for new routes with 32 foreign airlines”, said Marcelo Freixo, president of Embratur.
Between March 21 and 23, Embratur participated in Routes Americas in Chicago (USA), a fair that brought together the world's leading airlines. At the event, the agency proposed plans to increase the supply of international flights to Brazil for the years 2024 and 2025. The growth of the international airline network is one of the institutional missions of Embratur, which has been working in partnership with the airlines, promoting destinations in Brazil in the countries of origin of these new flights to generate demand that gives economic sustainability to the new routes.
“With the help of big data, we can know where and who are the potential new tourists who are interested in what Brazil has to offer. So we first demonstrate to airlines the demand potential to stimulate the emergence of new routes. Once the new route is guaranteed, our mission is to connect the operators and work on tools to promote Brazilian destinations and bring tourists here”, explains Freixo.
In some cases, there will be an increase in the frequency of existing routes, but there will also be announcements of new routes with airlines already operating in Brazil, as well as the start-up of new airlines.
NEW CRUISES – Embratur also works to attract new foreign tourists through sea cruises. Between the 27th and 30th of this month, the agency set up a stand at Seatrade Cruise Global, in Fort Lauderdale, United States, an event focused on the cruise trade. In this market, planning requires even more anticipation. As the medium and large boat seasons are already scheduled until the end of 2014, negotiations focused on 2025 and 2026.