Record departure of Argentines abroad: due to the dollar effect, it was 75% higher than a year ago

Due to the cheap dollar, the number of Argentines who vacationed outside the country grew by 74.9% in January of this year compared to January 2024, a month that was impacted by the devaluation of December 2023.

The beginning of 2025 saw 2.5 million residents leaving the country via all international routes, of which 1.9 million were tourists and 672,300 were day-trippers (those who stay less than one night, but who travel for the day).

The figures come from the latest international tourism statistics published this Tuesday by Indec. According to the agency's data, 87.5% of outbound tourism was directed to neighboring countries .

The main destinations were Brazil (32.8%), Chile (22.9%) and Uruguay (16.3%), which were boosted by Brazilian beaches that became more attractive with the devaluation of the real, shopping tours in Santiago de Chile and the return of Argentines vacationing in Punta del Este.

As for the means of transport used, 66.7% of tourists left the country by land , while 24.2% did so by air and 9.1% by river or sea . Meanwhile, the steps surveyed by Indec represented 36.3% of total outbound tourism.

With greater connectivity due to the increase in flights with Argentina under the 'open skies' policy, trips abroad by air reached a total of 466,600 resident tourists , which implied a year-on-year increase of 51.8% in January.

Ezeiza International Airport and Jorge Newbery Airport accounted for 84.2% of the total, with the majority travelling to Brazil (154,300 tourists), especially to the south , to the state of Santa Catarina.

Thus, Argentina consolidated its position as the main source of tourists to Brazil in the first month of the year, when a total of 870,318 visitors arrived, according to data from the Brazilian Agency for International Tourism Promotion (Embratur) .

The average stay in general was 13.9 nights , according to Indec. The longest were in Europe, with 24.4 nights; and in the countries that make up the “rest of the world” block, with 21.7 nights.

Meanwhile, with the rise in the price of Argentina in dollars due to the appreciation of the peso, inbound tourism suffered a decline due to the lower number of visitors .

In January, just over 1 million non-resident visitors entered the country through all access routes surveyed by Indec, of which 672,400 were tourists and 368,100 were excursionists. This represents a 25.4% decrease compared to January 2024.

Thus, January recorded a negative balance of 1.5 million international visitors . This result was due to the negative balance of 1.2 million tourists and 304,200 excursionists, the statistical agency reported.