The recently announced move by Brazil’s largest tour operator/travel agency—CVC—that it has retained JTB Americas to serve CVC’s customers New York, Florida and California in the United States, suggests that it is trying to expand its footprint in both North America and South America through the synergy brought about by its partnership with JTB and the latter’s global network, which includes subsidiaries in Brazil.

In making the move, CVC ended its contract with US Travel, a receptive operator that bills itself as “the largest tour operator in New York (City) that exclusively serves Brazilian customers” and whose own product portfolio is almost exclusively within the confines of New York City. CVC also ended its contract with Orlando-based Alltour.

Judging by the remarks of Fábio Mader, CVC’s director of international products, the changeover to JTB took place around the same time as the company was close to acquiring the operator Grupo Trend, one of the largest tour operators in Brazil. It also has a substantial presence in Orlando and southern Florida.

According to a report in the Brazilian travel trade publication, PANROTAS, Mader said “as the contracts with previous suppliers were to win, CVC has carried out a competitive process in these regions, that has happens every few years.” Several local suppliers participated, including the previous suppliers (US Travel and Alltour), and JTB was the winner “considering quality standard, prices and service provision recommended by CVC.”

The Japanese Connection: JTB is uniquely positioned to sell and service the products of CVC which sells both domestic and international tours and packages in Brazil. JTB’s major Brazilian subsidiary Alatur JTB, has a substantial presence in the country and has sold the country to Japanese travelers for more than 25 years.

Brazil is home to the largest Japanese population outside Japan. One 2013 report said that there were approximately 1.8 million people of Japanese descent in Brazil. The first Japanese immigrants arrived in Brazil in 1908 and they have had a solid presence in the country’s business and industrial sectors for decades. Currently, Japan is Brazil’s sixth largest trading partner (behind China, the U.S., Argentina, Netherlands and Germany) and it sends a sizable number of corporate and MICE travelers to Brazil through Alatur JTB, which has been voted the best corporate travel agency in Brazil.†

† According to a 2016 study by PANROTAS

 

 

Brazilian Real is up More than 20 percent against the Dollar in 15 months and Brazilians are spending more—much more—while traveling abroad. With the U.S. dollar still the global standard on currency exchanges, it is good news for U.S. travel suppliers, destinations and receptive tour operators to know that, since the trough of the Brazilian economic recession—the worst ever for the country—the country’s currency, the real, has increased more than 20 percent. The growing strength of the real over the past 15 months (see table below) overlaps or coincides with a surge in the amount of spending by Brazilians traveling abroad.

According to data just released by the nation’s Central Bank, expenditures of Brazilians abroad totaled $1.530 billion in March this year; this is 18.5 percent higher than in the same period of last year, when Brazilians spent 1.291 billion. In the first quarter of 2017, expenses were $4.469 billion, or 50.4 percent  higher, than the expenses recorded during Q1 2016 $2.972 billion).

While it is down 20 percent from a high of 40 cents to the U.S. dollar just as the recession was beginning, it is up 22 percent since the trough of the recession at the beginning of February 2016.

 

Commenting on the economic news, Eduardo Borba, president of president of SONDA, a major Latin American technology solutions and services company, said “The macroeconomic situation, which began to worsen in 2014 and reached its peak in 2016 with inflation, unemployment, rising interest rates and fiscal crisis, shows the first signs of improvement and, it seems, the economy is strengthened again. The worst has passed … Brazil’s economic recovery is already underway.”

 

or Por que a Flórida atrai o brasileiro?†

(Following is a commentary posted last week on a Brazilian website that focuses on tourism and tourism-related issues. Though it is somewhat filtered in its precise meaning because we present the google-translated version—touched up just a little by our own, limited understanding of Portuguese—its message is a true celebration of what Florida means to Brazilian visitors to the USA.)

By Fábio Steinberg*

There is an almost pathological love affair of Brazilians for Florida. It is impossible to explain only by the logic of where comes so much passion ignited by everything that refers to this destination. It is no wonder that, with or without economic crisis, we are the third largest international visitor to the US state, which corresponds to 10 percent of the total. And, as it could not be, we also won the title of number two country in spending.

This blind idolatry for Florida and its main icons – Miami, Orlando, Disney and other theme parks – is reflected even in our culture. For example, it is there that our little children learn not to throw trash on the ground, and their parents to respect the traffic laws.

The same irresistible attraction also gives signs of life in the pathetic attempts to repeat the urban model so beloved in Brazil. For example, Barra da Tijuca, in Rio de Janeiro, pretends to be Miami. Or the neighborhood of Alphaville, in São Paulo, pretends to be Orlando. Of course copy never surpasses the original, and the result is a sometimes crude and flawed version, but which, in a pact of silence, everyone pretends not to see.

Meanwhile, Florida celebrates exuberant results. A Tourism Economics study commissioned by Visit Florida to assess the impact of foreigners on the state’s economy points to a growing increase in tourism-related spending, revenue, and jobs, currently its industry number one.

It is no small thing. Visitors—84 percent of them at leisure—spent $ 108.8 billion in 2015, giving an average of $ 300 million a day. Of the estimated 85 million visitors who landed during 2016—more than 14 times than the whole of Brazil – 24 percent of them were international. They were led by a trio of 4 million Canadians, followed by 1.7 million Englishmen and 1.5 million Brazilians. Together with the other countries, they left $ 25.7 billion in the local coffers.

Domestic visitors stayed on average four days. Already the international ones extended for 11 days. Hors concours, sure to escape the cold polar bear worthy, the Canadians were way off the curve, settling in the area on average for 23 days.

The consumption of all visitors brought direct revenues not only hotels (28.3 percent), but also food (20.4 percent), commerce (14.5 percent), entertainment (14.3 percent), land transportation (12.4 percent) and Aviation (10.2 percent).

There was also the indirect and induced financial impact of these expenditures on other sectors of the state economy. Thus, results almost doubled to $ 183 billion, taking into account areas such as finance, education, agriculture, fishing, fuel, health, wholesale, construction, services, manufacturing, communication, among others.

As for taxes, tourism in Florida contributed $44.4 billion. To give you an idea, if it were not for this, each resident would have to pay $1,500 to maintain the same level of government services.

And the jobs? There were 1.4 million people in all sectors, which generated an income of 50.7 billion dollars. Put another way: every 76 visitors allowed to generate a hiring for tourism.

“The tourism industry is driving the growth of our economy,” commented with a smile from ear to ear Ken Lawson, president of Visit Florida. It is the organization that promotes tourism to the state, which serves more than 11,000 companies associated with tourism. He just needed to thank the Brazilians for their expressive contribution to the excellent results.

† From diarioduturismo.com.br—you can access the original article at: http://diariodoturismo.com.br/florida-atrai-o-brasileiro/

* Fábio Steinberg is a journalist and founder of the Viagens e Negócios website. This commentary was posted on Feb. 12, 2017

Not letting up on nor reducing its expansion plans, CVC, Brazil’s largest travel company—the CVC group includes the tour operator and travel agency CVC, Rextur Advance (an agency-only business) and Submarino Viagens, an online travel agency—kicked off 2017 by announcing its acquisition of Experimento, one of Brazil’s oldest education agencies.

CVC became involved in the study travel sector in January 2016 through a new division (Intercâmbio) that focused on language travel. It subsequently opened a number of retail agency stores to promote the product.

The latest acquisition will open the company up to an even broader segment of the study travel market. Experimento offers high school, university and vocational programs overseas, as well as language courses and holiday programs. It also provides opportunities to work abroad, including au pair positions and work/study programs.

CVC aims to expand the Experimento brand by opening up 30 new stores in Brazil over the next three years. “The Experimento acquisition allows us to expand the CVC student exchange programs segment and with the CVC Intercâmbio brand will complement our portfolio and further strengthen our relationship with trading partners and distribution channels,” Pedro Aparicio, CVC Group treasurer and investor relations, told The PIE News, an international education news site.

The move also fits into the long-term growth vision of the CVC’s CEO, Luiz Eduardo Falco, who believes that more Brazilians should learn to speak English. About five percent of Brazilians speak English, according to a report released several years ago by the British Council. In a wide-ranging interview in early 2015, Falco said that learning English would help to strengthen demand for travel destinations where English is spoken—principally the USA. But, more important, Falco indicated at the time, it would strengthen Brazil competitively on the international business marketplace.

 

Not Quite the Goal of 100: Early last year CVC announced its intention to build a 100 new travel agency stores a year for three years—a wildly improbable goal, most observers in the nation’s travel and tourism industry thought. According to its year-end report, the company almost achieved the goal. It opened 91 new stores in 2016, closing out the year with a total of 1,095 leisure stores.

And in a year that travel businesses measured success merely by how it was able to reduce losses, CVC reported The CVC Group (composed of CVC, Rextur Advance and Submarino Viagens) sold 8.8 billion reais ($2.7 billion) in tourism products and services last year, a growth of 1.5 percent over 2015. While online travel sales were weak, the tour operator division of the company closed 2016 with 5.5 billion reais ($1.7 billion), an increase of 6.5 percent over 2015.