Brazil Emerges Alongside Mexico as Many Americas’ Tourism Powerhouses Reshape the Regional Tourism Landscape

Written By: Ankita Neogi Khan

Ankita Neogi Khan

With over 15 years of experience in digital media, I bring a strong foundation in language, journalism, and storytelling to travel reporting. A graduate in English (Honours) from Presidency College with a Master's in Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of Calcutta, I began my career as a content curator before transitioning into travel journalism. I specialise in aviation, tourism trends, destination news, and industry insights, combining meticulous research, accuracy, and compelling storytelling to deliver credible, engaging, and insightful content for a global audience.

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September 14, 2026 10:12 GMT+5:30

The Americas are entering a more complicated tourism cycle, with Brazil, Mexico and Colombia showing striking momentum while established giants reveal different strengths. Mexico welcomed 98.2 million international visitors in 2025, including 47.8 million overnight tourists, while Brazil recorded a record 9.3 million international arrivals. Colombia also posted strong tourism expansion, although its international arrivals weakened in 2025 after a record 2024. The United States remained the region’s economic heavyweight, yet international tourist arrivals fell to 68.3 million. Canada, meanwhile, combined strong domestic demand with record tourism spending. These figures reveal a crucial shift: tourism power is no longer measured by arrivals alone. Air connectivity, hotel performance, domestic travel, visitor spending and economic contribution now determine which destinations have the most durable growth engines.

The Tourism Map Is Becoming More Uneven

The latest figures show why a simple arrivals ranking can mislead travellers, investors and tourism businesses. Mexico possesses extraordinary international scale, Brazil has delivered one of the region’s sharpest rebounds, and the United States continues to command enormous domestic demand. Yet Canada’s tourism economy relies heavily on residents travelling within the country, while Peru remains below its pre-pandemic international-tourist level despite improving steadily.

The OECD estimates that international tourism across OECD economies reached a record 847 million arrivals in 2025, up 3.4% year on year. However, performance varied sharply between destinations. Brazil’s international tourist arrivals surged 37% in 2025, while the United States fell 5.5% and Argentina declined 14%. That divergence makes the Americas particularly useful as a laboratory for understanding where travel growth is genuinely emerging.

Seven Markets, Seven Different Signals

The figures are not directly interchangeable because national statistical systems use different definitions. Mexico’s 98.2 million figure includes both tourists who stay overnight and excursionists who do not, for example, while Brazil’s OECD figure refers to international tourist arrivals. The distinction matters because headline volume can exaggerate or understate the real economic depth of tourism.

Mexico Has Scale, Spending And Connectivity

Mexico currently possesses the region’s most formidable combination of international volume and tourism infrastructure. Government figures show 98.2 million international visitors entered Mexico in 2025, a 13.6% increase from 2024. International visitor receipts reached US$34.99 billion, while 47.8 million tourists stayed overnight, up 6.1%.

The underlying economy is equally significant. Mexico’s tourism sector generated MXN2.71 trillion in 2024, equivalent to 8.7% of national GDP. It also supported approximately 2.9 million paid jobs, representing 7.4% of national employment. Domestic travel adds another layer, with 108.1 million domestic overnight trips recorded in 2024.

Aviation reinforces this scale. Mexican airlines and airports handled 122.4 million regular passengers in 2025, including 63.5 million domestic and 58.9 million international passengers. International tourists arriving by air reached 20.6 million, with the United States providing 13.7 million and Canada 2.8 million.

That source-market structure is changing slowly. Canada grew 11% in 2025, while arrivals from Italy, Argentina and China also increased. For travellers, the significance is clear: Mexico is no longer relying solely on its traditional North American corridor. Market diversification is becoming part of its growth strategy.

Brazil Is The Region’s Acceleration Story

Brazil offers perhaps the most dramatic momentum story among the seven markets. The country welcomed 9.3 million international arrivals in 2025, representing a 37.1% annual increase. International tourist spending approached US$7.9 billion, exceeding its pre-pandemic nominal level by 31.2%.

The aviation story is particularly revealing. Brazil handled 129.6 million domestic and international air passengers in 2025, 9.4% above 2024 and 9.2% above the previous 2019 record. Domestic traffic crossed 100 million passengers for the first time, while international passenger traffic reached 28.4 million.

International aviation also became a major tourism gateway. More than 6.1 million international visitors arrived by air in 2025, a 33.2% increase. São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro remained the dominant gateways, although Santa Catarina, Bahia and Ceará demonstrated the expanding geographical reach of international demand.

Brazil’s growth therefore looks less like a simple rebound and more like a connectivity-led expansion of its tourism footprint. Its National Tourism Plan targets 8.1 million international tourists and 150 million domestic tourists by 2027, although the country has already exceeded the international target.

Colombia Shows How Demand Can Diversify

Colombia’s trajectory deserves close attention because it combines international demand with unusually strong domestic tourism. In 2024, the country welcomed a record 7.1 million international arrivals, up 14.6%, while international tourism accounted for 73.6% of tourism consumption.

Domestic travel was substantial too. Colombians generated 54.8 million domestic overnight trips in 2024, 15.4% above 2023. Tourism contributed COP33.4 trillion, or 2.2% of gross value added, and supported 899,200 jobs.

The 2025 picture became more complicated. OECD data show international arrivals declining 15.3%, illustrating why one exceptional year should not automatically be treated as a permanent structural trend. Nevertheless, government data point to strong international mobility and rising tourism-related foreign-exchange earnings.

For travellers, Colombia’s strategic advantage lies in diversification. Bogotá and Medellín can support urban travel, while Cartagena, the Pacific coast, La Guajira and emerging nature destinations broaden the national proposition. That geographical spread could become more valuable than another single-city tourism boom.

The United States Still Owns The Scale Advantage

The United States presents the most important paradox in this comparison. It remains one of the world’s largest tourism economies, yet international arrivals weakened in 2025.

The country recorded 68.3 million international tourist arrivals, down 5.5% from 2024 and still only 86% of its 2019 level. Nevertheless, travel exports reached US$250 billion, equivalent to 20.3% of total service exports.

Domestic travel provides the crucial counterweight. Americans generated an estimated 2.4 billion domestic person-trips in 2025, up 1.9%. That immense internal market cushions the industry when international demand changes.

For hotels, airlines and destinations, this creates an important distinction. The United States does not need international arrivals to rise every year to maintain a powerful tourism economy. Its extraordinary domestic travel base gives the market a resilience advantage that smaller international-dependent destinations cannot easily replicate.

Canada Shows The Strength Of Domestic Demand

Canada offers a different model of tourism resilience. In 2025, domestic and international visitors spent C$140.5 billion, up 2.8% year on year. Domestic visitors accounted for C$105.6 billion, while international visitors contributed C$34.9 billion.

International overnight trips slipped 0.6% to 19.8 million. Domestic overnight trips, however, climbed 1.6% to 107.3 million. Tourism GDP grew 2.5% in 2025, outpacing Canada’s overall GDP growth of 1.7%.

The accommodation market also remained robust. Canada’s tourism economy generated 687,800 direct jobs, while tourism represented 1.8% of national GDP. That makes Canada a compelling example of why domestic travel volume can be as strategically important as inbound arrivals.

Argentina And Peru Reveal The Recovery Gap

Argentina and Peru demonstrate that tourism momentum can remain uneven even when visitor demand is improving. Argentina welcomed 5.7 million international tourists in 2025, down from 6.6 million in 2024. The decline coincided with a stronger peso and weaker tourism competitiveness in some markets.

Yet tourism remains economically important. Travel and tourism represented 28.9% of Argentina’s service exports in 2024, while domestic commercial accommodation recorded 14.1 million overnight visitors.

Peru’s recovery is steadier but incomplete. It received approximately 3.4 million international tourists in 2025, according to the latest OECD comparison, remaining well below its 2019 level. Domestic overnight trips reached 44.1 million in 2024, while national air passenger traffic hit a record 44.7 million in 2025.

That aviation milestone matters. Lima’s role as a regional gateway can help tourism recover, while Machu Picchu continues to anchor international demand. The bigger challenge is spreading visitor activity beyond Peru’s best-known attractions.

Hotel Data Are Sending A Different Signal

Hotel performance complicates the arrivals picture further. CoStar data for the Americas showed Brazil and Peru among the strongest performers in early 2025, with RevPAR gains supported by both occupancy and average daily rates. Argentina recorded double-digit ADR growth, although exchange-rate effects influenced the result.

Mexico also produced strong hotel performance, while Canada posted respectable gains. The US market was more subdued after a strong first quarter.

This matters because hotel revenue captures something arrivals alone cannot: how much demand is translating into accommodation income. A destination with fewer visitors can sometimes produce stronger hotel economics than a larger market with heavier volume but weaker pricing.

Air Routes Are Becoming Tourism Infrastructure

Air capacity is increasingly acting as a leading indicator for destination growth. Brazil’s record aviation performance, Mexico’s 122.4 million passenger market and Peru’s 44.7 million passenger record all show how transport infrastructure can expand the practical geography of tourism.

New routes also influence where travellers can go without lengthy connections. They lower friction, create new source markets and give hotels a reason to invest outside established districts. The effect can become self-reinforcing: more seats create more accessibility, while stronger demand encourages airlines to add more seats.

For travellers, this can eventually mean more nonstop options, shorter journey times and greater competition between airlines. For destinations, it can mean a broader international customer base.

The Real Tourism Winners Need Resilience

The most useful ranking therefore cannot be based on arrivals alone. Mexico leads on international scale, Brazil on recent international growth, the United States on domestic depth, Canada on domestic spending resilience and Colombia on a rapidly diversifying tourism economy.

Argentina demonstrates the vulnerability created by currency movements, while Peru illustrates the difficulty of rebuilding international demand after a prolonged disruption. Across all seven markets, the strongest long-term performers are likely to be those that combine international demand, domestic resilience, air connectivity and hotel investment.

What Travellers Should Watch Next

For travellers, the next phase will not simply be about finding the country with the highest visitor count. The more useful signals will be new air routes, hotel expansion, source-market diversification and domestic travel strength.

Mexico enters 2026 with exceptional scale and the additional visibility of the FIFA World Cup. Brazil has built substantial aviation momentum and can use that capacity to deepen international reach. Colombia’s opportunity lies in spreading demand across more regions, while Peru needs to convert aviation growth into broader international tourism recovery.

The United States remains difficult to challenge because of its immense domestic market, even when inbound travel softens. Canada demonstrates how a mature destination can retain momentum through residents travelling at home. Together, these markets show that the next generation of tourism winners will not necessarily be those attracting the most people.

They will be the destinations that turn connectivity into spending, spending into investment and investment into durable travel demand.