GBTA forecasts growth in Brazilian business travel
Sao Paulo, Brazil – The Global Business Travel Association (“GBTA”), the world’s premier business travel and corporate meetings organization, has released its second GBTA BTI™ Outlook report on Brazil as part of its semiannual series. The report, sponsored by Visa, includes the GBTA BTI™, an index of business travel spending which provides a way to distill market performance over a period of time.
Wellington Costa, President of GBTA Brazil commented: “Brazil’s strong economic growth has made it one of the world’s key markets to watch for business travel. This report highlights the major issues in business travel spending and, by extension, in Brazil’s economy. Despite the challenging global economic climate, Brazil remains on a robust business travel growth track, especially when compared to the U.S. and Europe. The key question is whether Brazil can tackle its travel infrastructure constraints to meet its expanding business travel demand.”
Tad Fordyce, head of global commercial solutions at Visa Inc said: “Year after year Brazil has proven to be a formidable contributor to the global tourism economy. In 2011 global travelers spent more than $2.3 billion in Brazil on their Visa cards, an increase of 10 percent over 2010. This natural momentum combined with hosting the 2014 FIFA World Cup™ and the Rio 2016 Olympic Games is a tremendous opportunity for the burgeoning nation. Visa is committed to helping Brazil support the payment infrastructure necessary to capture this opportunity.”
If spending trends continue at current levels, this year Brazil is set to surpass South Korea to become the world’s eighth-largest market for business travel spending. Total business travel spending in Brazil should reach $30.1 billion in 2012, an increase of 9.3% from 2011.
Domestic business travel currently contributes 80% of this spending. However, in 2012 Brazilian international outbound business travel grew at twice the rate of domestic travel – indicating that as the global economic environment improves, the Brazilian business travel market should expand even more rapidly.Source: GBTA
