Bye-bye World Cup
June 18, 2014
They are like rush-hour traffic heading the wrong way: Brazilians who leave the country despite the incoming wave of some 600,000 foreign tourists during the World Cup.
It may be hard to imagine in such a football mad country, but in these busy weeks of football, Brazil also has many people leaving its shores, people who would prefer to avoid a World Cup. For these Brazilians, four and a half weeks of football is not quite what they call a good time.
This year some 20 percent more Brazilians have booked overseas trips in comparison to last June and July, according to the Brazilian association of travel agencies, Abav Nacional.
The tournament takes place right in the middle of the school holidays. The fact that the days on which Brazil is playing are also declared public holidays, mean that office workers are well served taking the time off.
Many people fleeing the World Cup are also using the tournament as a chance to earn some money. In Rio de Janeiro, the location of the World Cup final, many Brazilians are renting out their own apartments. With the money they earn, they can enjoy a decent holiday overseas.
Ronaldinho rents his pad
One of the many high-profile Rio residents to get out of town during the World Cup is ex-Brazilian national team footballer, Ronaldinho. With an advertisement on short-term letting website AirBnB, the former player is charging some 11,396 euros ($15,462) a night for use of his house. The asking price is high, but the accommodation is pretty luxurious.
The locals' desire to get out of the country is also having an affect on the domestic tourism market. Brazilians at the moment are not travelling on holiday much inside their own country. The flight bookings are up 26.5 percent in comparison to last year, but the numbers are still much lower than expected.
"At the beginning of the year the prices for domestic travel packages were very high, says Edmar Bull, Vice President of Abav Nacional. "Now, they have dropped by, in some instances, 68 percent "
At the end of 2013 flights and overnight stays were very expensive in Brazil. At the beginning of 2014, the Brazilian aviation authority added some 2000 flights for the weeks of the World Cup. The result: a massive decrease in prices.
Business travel stagnant
The asking rate for hotel rooms actually went down just before the World Cup. At the beginning of the year, as prices jumped to three times the normal levels, bookings were still low. Now, most hotels have reached acceptable levels of bookings, they say.
But still, according to the statistics, Brazilian hotels will only be 55 percent full during the World Cup. Especially, Sao Paulo is bringing down the national average with a particularly low number of bookings. The 11 million plus city normally has a lot of business travelers, but they clearly are avoiding the city during the World Cup. The surge in World Cup visitors doesn't make up the shortfall.
"The demand for overnight stays and for tourism in total in a city depends on the popularity of the particular World Cup games," according to Roberto Rotter, from the Brazilian Hotel industry network, FOHB. "And, it depends on the number of interesting tourist spots nearby."
For that reason it's perhaps not surprising that, for the moment, beachside cities like Recife or Rio de Janeiro are attracting more football-loving tourists.