Reading Real Behavior: Data Reveals New Patterns in LAC Travel
We recently sat with Gustavo Arruda, Chief Economist, LAC, to learn more about this year's travel insights.
The MEI Travel Report 2026 comes out at a moment of significant global economic uncertainty. Why publish now, and what makes MEI's perspective on LAC travel uniquely relevant?
Precisely because of uncertainty. That is when data matters most. What the Mastercard Economics Institute brings to this conversation is something different. We are reading real behavior. Anonymized transaction data from Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia that tells us what travelers are actually doing, not what they say they will do.
When a tourist from the UK pays at a restaurant in Buenos Aires, or a Canadian visitor books lodging in Mexico, that transaction tells a story. When you aggregate millions of those stories, patterns emerge that no poll can replicate.
The LAC travel economy is entering a new phase. Arrival numbers alone no longer tell the full story. What matters now is understanding where people come from, what drives their decision, how currency dynamics shape their choices, and what they spend on once they arrive. That is what this report is about and it has real, actionable implications for destinations, financial institutions, and businesses across the region.
One of the report's most striking findings is that Argentina ranks as the world's second most exchange-rate-sensitive tourism destination. What does that actually mean?
It means that every time the peso depreciates, Argentina becomes more attractive for international tourism and it does so with an intensity that very few destinations in the world can match.
Our data shows that a 10% depreciation of the Argentine peso is associated with a 9.5% increase in foreign tourist arrivals. The global average for that same currency move is just 2.4%. Argentina responds nearly four times more than the global benchmark.
Only Türkiye surpasses Argentina on this measure globally. That puts Argentina among the most FX-sensitive tourism markets on the planet.
For the industry, this creates a measurable and repeatable opportunity. Every time the peso weakens against major currencies, Argentina effectively becomes more affordable for foreign visitors. This presents an opportunity for airlines, tour operators, hotels, and financial institutions. And the data shows how that translates into spending: Brazilian visitors lead arrivals, allocating 37.3% of their spend to lodging and 27.1% to restaurants. UK tourists lead on restaurant spend at 34.9%.
Brazil tells a very different story in the report, one centered on how tourists spend rather than on currency dynamics. What does the data reveal?
Brazil is redefining what a top-tier tourism destination looks like. And it is doing it through experience.
Our data shows that tourists in Brazil allocate 27.1% of their spending to restaurants and 2.4% to bars. Together, that is nearly 29.5% of total tourist expenditure. Lodging accounts for just 17.8%.
In most destinations around the world, accommodation is the dominant category. In Brazil, people spend more on eating, drinking, and living the experience than on where they sleep. That says a lot about what Brazil offers and about what international visitors are looking for when they choose to go there.
The origin-market breakdown makes it even more interesting. Argentine visitors are the most retail-active, with 36.9% of their spend going to shopping. UK visitors lead restaurant spending at 33.7%. Chilean visitors show the highest allocation to live experiences at 7.3%. Each market brings a distinct behavioral profile to Brazil, and for destination operators, that level of detail is genuinely valuable.
The report maps spending profiles by origin market across all four countries studied. Why are these profiles strategically important?
Because they allow you to move from mass marketing to precision. And in tourism, precision makes a real difference.
When you know that Ecuadorian visitors to Colombia allocate 42.3% of their spending to retail, the highest single-category share of any origin market across all four destinations in our study, you can build a very specific strategy around that insight. You know where to invest in the retail experience, which brands to activate, and which corridors to strengthen.
What makes these profiles valuable is their consistency. These are not one-off observations. They are stable behavioral patterns that show up reliably in the data. In Mexico, Canadian visitors are the most lodging-focused at 38.2%, while UK travelers show the highest tour-operator use at 6.3%, a clear signal of appetite for curated, structured travel experiences.
For financial institutions, understanding spending profiles by origin market also opens up opportunities for tailored products, targeted offers, and better risk modeling. The commercial applications go well beyond the tourism sector itself.
The report identifies Panama City as Latin America's dominant aviation hub. That is a bold claim given the size and infrastructure of cities like São Paulo or Mexico City. What does the data show?
The data is quite clear. Among all flight routes originating in the LAC region, Panama City leads North summer seat growth by a wide margin ahead of Madrid, Bogotá, Buenos Aires, Paris, and São Paulo. This reinforces the relevance of the country as a critical hub of LAC.
Air connectivity is one of the factors that most directly shapes a destination's tourism competitiveness. A strong hub expands the effective reach of every destination connected through it. For intra-LAC travel specifically, Panama City's growing role has direct implications for which routes become viable, which markets become accessible, and which destinations gain or lose competitive ground.
Rio de Janeiro and Lisbon also appear among the top routes for seat growth, which reflects some interesting transatlantic dynamics. But the headline finding is Panama City's leadership, and it deserves to be taken seriously.
For airlines, tourism boards, and corporate travel managers, this is a signal worth incorporating into long-term planning. The center of gravity in LAC aviation is shifting.
The report's Business vs. Leisure Momentum Index highlights some unexpected cities Brasília at number 16 and Guadalajara at number 20. What does that tell us about corporate travel in the region?
It tells us that the map of business travel in Latin America is diversifying. The traditional assumption is that corporate travel in the region flows primarily through the major financial capitals, São Paulo and Mexico City first and foremost. And they remain important. But our Momentum Index captures something more specific: where corporate travel demand is growing relative to leisure, and which cities are seeing the most pronounced growth.
Brasília at 16 reflects Brazil's political and institutional capital generating real traction in the corporate segment, government affairs, regulatory engagement, infrastructure investment, public-private sector relations. Guadalajara at 20 reflects Mexico's expanding technology and manufacturing ecosystem. It is a city increasingly present in conversations about regional supply chains.
For airlines planning routes, hotel operators evaluating where to invest, and financial services companies deciding where to build product, this kind of intelligence is useful and differentiated. Knowing that corporate momentum is building in cities like Brasília and Guadalajara is exactly the type of signal that can help you get ahead of the curve.
What is the central message MEI wants the industry to take from this report?
That the LAC travel economy is no longer defined just by how many people arrive. It is defined by the forces explaining why they come, how they spend, and where the next wave of demand is forming.
The most exchange-rate-sensitive destination in the Americas is Argentina. The destination where tourists spend more on food and drink than on lodging is Brazil. And the city leading regional aviation seat growth is Panama City. These are not forecasts. They are behavioral signals already visible in the data and they challenge assumptions that much of the industry is still operating on.
What Mastercard's transaction intelligence allows us to do is move from intuition to evidence. Tourism boards can build marketing strategies grounded in the actual spending behavior of their most valuable visitor segments. Airlines can understand where seat demand is concentrating and why. Financial institutions can develop products that align with how travelers from specific markets actually manage their money abroad.
The fundamentals in LAC travel are solid and the signals in the data are clear. The opportunity to act on intelligence, rather than just on instinct, has never been more concrete. That is what the Mastercard Economics Institute is here to enable.
