In-Country Analysis: Tracking Domestic Travel Trends in Brazil

For large countries, especially those such as Brazil — which features in the global top ten for both population and land mass — domestic air travel may represent the largest share of arrivals and departures. For many DMOs, this means that catering to domestic tourism is a key part of their strategy — and success hinges on being able to access the type of reliable, up-to-date information about travel patterns within their borders that ForwardKeys provides.

Our final article in this four-part series on travel trends affecting Brazil looks at the changing patterns of demand and supply between Brazil’s five regions, as well as key insights at the state and city level, showing the importance of accurate historical and forecast data to effective destination marketing and management.

Brazil’s Northeast and South Regions Fuel Domestic Travel Growth​

At the regional level, analysis of domestic arrivals in Brazil through Q1 2024 reveals some interesting differences. While there is encouraging growth nationwide, pointing to a continuing recovery of the domestic air travel market in the aftermath of COVID-19, that growth is not distributed evenly.

The North Region shows the lowest growth at +10%, which may be attributable to its lower share of both business and leisure travel. The Midwest Region, despite being home to the national capital, Brasilia, and an important destination for ecotourism, shows modest growth of +14%, perhaps reflecting its status as the least populated region of the country.

To the east however, growth of almost a fifth in the Northeast Region (+19%) reinforces the importance of coastal “sun and beach” destinations to the domestic tourist market, as well as the impact of carnival season, with the region hosting one of the world’s largest street parties in Salvador, Bahia during this period. Similar growth can be seen in the Southeast Region (+19%) where major economic centres such as São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro attract carnivalgoers and business travellers alike.

Bahia Sparks Huge Interest, But Faces Capacity Constraints​

Adequately servicing travel demand is crucial for DMOs looking to maximise the success of their destinations — and negotiating with airlines on providing additional capacity for in-demand routes requires a detailed understanding not only of current visitor traffic but of how demand is developing in future. One key metric to look at in this context is travel intent. Analysis of flight searches for domestic travel within Brazil in Q1 2024 provides a good example of why the granular level of data ForwardKeys provides is crucial here.

For most destination states, there is a close correlation between the share of flight searches, indicating intent, and the share of actual seat capacity available — with a variance between 1 and 3 single percentage points. However, focusing on domestic travel to Bahia reveals that while this destination represents over a sixth of flight searches (17%), capacity is underresourced, with only a 6% share.

This can be attributed to increased domestic travel to Salvador, Bahia’s capital and home to one of the largest carnivals in Brazil — indicating a need for additional air capacity to meet demand during this key period.

Carnival Demand Surges, Outperforming Last Year

Across Brazil, city destinations renowned for the size and popularity of their carnival programmes have been well represented in domestic flight searches for departure dates in February 2024 — the peak of carnival season. When compared to the same period in 2023 we see significant growth with flight searches almost doubling in the case of Salvador (+93%), and Recife (+90%).

For Porto Seguro (+117%) and Rio de Janeiro (+128%), the difference in traveller interest between the 2023 and 2024 carnival seasons is even more pronounced, and for Sao Paulo, with a maximum popularity index figure of 100, the difference is more than threefold, at 240% growth in flight searches.

Drilling Down: Discovering Key Insights at a Local Level

By looking beyond the headline data, and drilling down into travel trends at a regional, state and even city level, destinations working with ForwardKeys can better understand the specific impact that major events like Brazil’s carnival season have on domestic travel — helping them both to prepare for upcoming peaks in visitor volume, as well as better target and segment marketing and promotional campaigns for future editions of popular events.

This concludes our series of articles on Q1 2024 travel trends in Brazil. If you missed any of the previous articles, you can find them at the links below. In the meantime, follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook or X for notifications about our future travel analysis publications.

ForwardKeys Destination Insights – Brazil Series I

ForwardKeys Destination Insights – Brazil Series II

ForwardKeys Destination Insights – Brazil Series III