São Paulo – The number of Brazilians travelling around the country grew 83% in comparison with the previous study on the matter, in 2007. Of the 2,514 interviewed for research Brazilian Travel Consumer Habits 2009, 58.8% travelled between 2007 and 2009. In the last research, this percentage was 32%.
The figures were presented on Wednesday (4th) by the Minister of Tourism, Luiz Barretto, in Brazilian capital Brasília. The study was developed by the Vox Populi Institute, at the request of the Ministry of Tourism, from June 17th to July 7th this year, in 11 capitals in the country: São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Porto Alegre, Curitiba, Florianópolis, Salvador, Recife, Fortaleza, Brasília and Goiânia.
The interviews were done by telephone and focussed on Brazilians aged 18, in all income classes. The error margin of the research is 2 percentage points.
During the study, those interviewed were divided into current clients (who travelled at some time over the last two years), potential clients (who did not travel over the last two years, but who plan to do so in the next two) and non-clients (who did not travel and do not plan to travel in the coming two years). The answers by non-clients were discarded in the results of the research.
The state of Bahia is preferred by current passengers, 11.6%, followed by São Paulo (10.9%) and Rio de Janeiro (9.4%). Among the potential clients, the state of the Northeast also leads in the preference of 21.4% of the tourists, followed by Pernambuco (11.9%), Rio de Janeiro (11.3%) and Ceará (9.8%).
The research also shows that trips around Brazil were considered positive by national tourists. Among the current clients, 95.3% evaluated the experience as excellent or good and 53.7% said their expectations were fully answered.
To 80.6% of the current clients and 78.6% of the potential clients, the best sources of information about the tourist destinations were family and internet. The favourite routes for both kinds of clients were beaches, followed by the countryside and historic cities. Hotels (45.1%) and inns (22.2%) were the most common places for night stays by the current clients.
Another interesting figure is that most of the internal tourists (78.3% of the current clients) prefer to travel on their own, without the assistance of travel agencies. With regard to trip planning, 18% of the tourists do so with up to 30 days in advance and 54.6% of the trips last one week at the most.
Incentives to tourism
During the event, campaign “If you are Brazilian, it is time to know Brazil” was released. “We want to show a Brazil that Brazilians do not know, due to its diversity and size, and to foster the consumer habits of tourists in the country. We know that this is a competitive market and want to win this audience,” said the National Tourist Policy Secretary, Airton Pereira.
The campaign focuses on Brazilian beaches and plans to stimulate domestic trips in the country in the holiday season. The coast of Brazil should be the theme of advertising campaigns and printed documents, to be broadcast, starting on Sunday (8/11), on television channels, Internet, magazines, newspapers, cinemas, airports and underground stations.
*Translated by Mark Ament
