The country registers for the first time a negative tourist balance with its neighbor due to the exchange difference, but the number of tourists from Brazil increased.
Uruguay had a record of visits Brazilian tourists during 2023, a year that had fewer visitors than 2017, but that showed a new dynamic in the country’s tourism balance.
He Center for Studies of Economic and Social Reality (Ceres) published his Tourist Activity Monitora study on the current situation of the tourism in Uruguay and its impact on the local economy, in the prelude to the beginning of a new summer season. Among his most notable observations is the fact that, although more visitors are arriving than in the pre-pandemic, spending is still lower, affecting the cost effectiveness of the sector.
But one piece of information in particular caught our attention: the number of brazilians who chose the country to visit grew considerably during the year, compared to both 2017 and 2019 —two years strongly marked by depreciations in Argentina. In this way, in the first 11 months of the year, there were 516,000 tourists from Brazil, 15% more than six years ago, and 22% more than four years ago.
This important influx of Brazilians—along with a general increase in tourists from the rest of the world—made it possible to reach the figure of 2,701,000 foreign visitors; which represents an increase of 9.4% compared to the receptive tourism of 2019. In comparison with 2017, however, the decline was 18%.
Furthermore, along with the diversification of incoming tourism from other parts of the world, it was possible to compensate for the sharp drop in Argentine tourists: compared to 2017, the number of people from the neighboring country who visited Uruguay It fell 36%, and compared to 2019, 3%.
A historic tourism deficit
This drop in Argentine tourists, together with the fact that many Uruguayans crossed the border from the exchange difference with the neighboring country, contributed to the fact that, for the first time in history, the tourism scale be negative.
This is because in the first nine months of 2023, 1,138 million dollars were received from tourism, but 1,512 million dollars were spent outside Uruguayan borders. Likewise, foreign exchange income was 24% less than in 2019, and 43% less than in 2017. Spending by Argentines, in particular, was reduced by 42%; while that of other nationalities in general fell by 36%.
During the first 11 months of the year, meanwhile, expenses abroad were 5% higher than in 2022.
Source: Ambito
