The new markets for European tourism are Latin American

17-10-22

The global travel industry is on the road to recovery in the second half of 2022, however, in some parts of the world major obstacles for outbound markets remain.

The relevance of high-value audiences such as China, one of the world's largest outbound markets, remaining closed, while the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian conflict has restricted the freedom of travel for Russian citizens, cannot be ignored. The good news is that, using travel data, there are new premium markets to access.

To make up for the shortfall in arrivals from these places, destinations need to conduct thorough tourism market research to identify alternative, but equally valuable, travel audiences.

Compared to 2019, the proportion of premium class travel from Latin America to Europe this summer increased by six percentage points, suggesting that a higher proportion of tourists arriving from Latin America were affluent.

Looking at the most resilient source markets for premium travel, with a share above three per cent, four experienced significant growth in their 2019 figures. Arrivals to Europe in premium cabins from Colombia are up 57%, with Argentina (+32%), Mexico (+21%) and Brazil (+15%) also proving to be very resilient source markets. In total, arrivals from Latin America are up 25% compared to 2019.

The above figures are sufficient to indicate that Latin America, as an outbound market, is of significant value to European destinations seeking to compensate for the absence of other major audiences.

In July and August 2022, 58% of visitors travelling from Argentina to Europe in premium class cabins stayed more than 14 nights, an increase of 16 percentage points versus 2019.

Longer stays inevitably translate into higher spend in the destination - and when you consider that arrivals from Argentina exceeded 2019 levels by almost a third, affluent Argentine travellers represent a valuable source market for European destinations. Moreover, with premium passenger group types evenly split between couples, singles and families, this influx of affluent tourists will have benefited a wide range of businesses.

The winners in the fourth quarter in terms of attracting and engaging this audience with luxury hotels, bespoke travel and high-end shopping in Europe are to be found on the Iberian Peninsula. Cities such as Madrid, Barcelona and Lisbon are showing double-digit growth from summer to winter.

What the above data demonstrates is that conducting thorough tourism market research to identify profitable outbound markets such as Argentina can bring benefits to destinations faced with the absence of other major audiences.