A while back GW and Surfing offered their opinion that tourism was generally bad in Natal at the moment based on the number of tourists they saw over there during their stay (not sure if Surfing is based in Brazil or not but know GW isn't).

These are the official figures from Infraero - available to the general public. I just have a month by month and year by year comparative analysis so that I can keep track of growth (positive or negative) with regards to the influx of passengers. I also track a bunch of other information gathered from these sheets but for the purposes of answering the question raised by GW and Surfing, the international and domestic arrivals are the most important figures.

So without further ado:

First off, the top 4 (Recife, Salvador, Natal and Fortaleza) represented 83% of all incoming passengers to the Northeast in January 2008. The average remained constant over the past 5 years and they still receive 96% of all international arrivals.

Natal saw 15% less international arrivals in January 2008 when compared to January 2007. So yes, there was a significantly lower number of international arrivals, which is probably why GW and Surfing said that they noticed less tourists around. On the other hand though, there was a 20% increase in domestic arrivals. As the number of domestic arrivals is by far superior to international arrivals, the end result was an overall increase in passenger arrivals of 13%.

Just in case you were wondering, Fortaleza grew -6%, Recife showed a positive growth of 20%, Salvador grew -2% and overall the whole of the Northeast showed a positive growth of 3%

So taking that into consideration we have to ask ourselves why did we see less international arrivals in Natal yet a huge increase in domestic arrivals?

Here is my opinion -
Strength of the Real is very likely a good reason - it would explain why less international arrivals are coming - Natal was originally marketed by the tour operators as a cheap and cheerful destination... with the strengthening of the real, those charter flight tourists on budgets are finding their holidays to be more expensive, therefore less appealing. Rather than a sharp drop in tourist arrivals, I believe we are seeing more of an adjustment of charter tourists vs regular flight tourists which can ultimately be benefitial for the real estate market as cheap package charter flight passengers are potentially less likely to buy property than the regular flight tourists. Unfortunately I don't have access to the breakdown of what % of the passengers arrived on charter flights and how many arrived on regular flights to corroborate my theory so it's just an opinion.

Then again might just be January and in February the numbers will bounce back up again - who knows?

It would also explain the jump in domestic arrivals as the domestic market gains more strength and more spending power - Salvador and Fortaleza combined showed a loss of 43 thousand domestic arrivals while Natal and Recife combined showed a gain of 100 thousand domestic arrivals.

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So without further ado:

First off, the top 4 (Recife, Salvador, Natal and Fortaleza) represented 83% of all incoming passengers to the Northeast in January 2008. The average remained constant over the past 5 years and they still receive 96% of all international arrivals.

Thanks for that, have you got passenger numbers for each of the 4 big cities

Yup, dating back all the way to 2003:

::. INFRAERO - Aeroportos Brasileiros

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Thanks For That Very Interesting

Let's have a look at this statistical representation. I presume that the object of the exercise is to hopefully talk up NE Brazil.

Firstly, if 96% of international passengers arrived at Fort/Nat/Sal/Recife....where did the other 4% arrive? Where are the other international airports in NE Brazil that receive international passengers? Please tell me which international carrier (charter or scheduled) arrived at any other airport in the NE than those above.

Next, until you can compare the actual number of international flights arriving at each airport and the respective increase/decrease, you cannot make a judgement as to the potential profile of that arriving passenger. For example, there may have been less charter flights available in 2007 so therefore "tourists" had to switch to TAP, a scheduled carrier. This doesn't mean that there are businessmen rushing to buy properties in Natal, it means they couldn't get a seat on a cheaper charter flight.

Next, percentages are very deceptive, it is the stuff of TV Polls. How many international passengers arrived in NE Brazil in 2007? When you have this figure compare it to international arrivals at major EU tourists destinations like Malaga/Faro/Nice etc etc....my guess is that the numbers are minute compared to these places.

Recife increased by 20% ...this could also mean nothing as it might mean that TAP or some other airline added one flight against the previous year....this means nothing.

The real issue is how many people arrived (international) when and where and was this total up or down. But look at the numbers v Malaga or Agadir maybe or such locations then one can get a perspective on the real size of this allegedly boom market.

You are welcome - there is a lot of information on there which is of course open to individual interpretation and is only a tiny part of the research we do to compare the investment potential of different locations.

I'd be very interested to hear other peoples interpretations of the figures.

On the same site you have the description of each airport, construction dates, number of flights (although the carriers are often not updated and many are wrong), runway size, cargo space and passenger capacity. You will see if you compare annual passenger capacity to numbers of arrivals that according to their figures, the top 4 are operating at a combined average of 106% of capacity.

Also, bear in mind that the numbers for international arrivals are the number of people who passed through the international side of the passport controls, so if someone like Ralhpj (assuming he has a residents visa) arrives at any airport in the Northeast, regardless of whether it's a direct or an indirect flight, he'll be counted as a "Domestic" arrival even though he's not a Brazilian citizen. That is probably why Aracajú shows only 4 international arrivals for the yearly figures of 2007.

Also interesting is that although some people do mention Joao Pessoa, no one on the forums has mentioned Alagoas yet but it seems to be quite popular (although nowhere near as popular as the top 4) with international arrivals - does anyone know anything about that state? Almost all of the arrivals outside of the top four were to Maceió in Alagoas... I've been told they do some charters now and again but couldn't verify this.

I doubt the figures are 100% correct (or else not a single international passenger flew into Joao Pessoa last year) but they are still representative.

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Birmingham International Airport (BIA) handled 576,130 passengers during January, including 476,507 scheduled passengers and 99,623 charter passengers spread across the two passenger terminals; a decrease of 0.1% over the previous year.
Source: BIA (BHX) own website.......

In Jan 2008 Natal handled a total (int+ domestic) 185000 or less than half of Birmingham. Plus Natal is peak season in January, BHX low season. These are the real dimensions. So when people talk of "massive boom" coming in Natal due to a new airport it has a long long way to go to get to Birmingham's figures and is miles and miles away from Malaga or Faro. So the largest airport in South America, when it is built, allegedly in 2010 it might get near to Birmingham's numbers of 2008, (2 years prior).
People should think about this very carefully when they read websites claiming that Natal will become a huge gateway just because and even if they complete their airport more likely in 2015.

Hi all,

GW- As much as I appreciate where you are coming from you cannot COMPARE NATAL TO ESTABLISHED AIRPORTS IN AN ESTABLISHED AND MATURE MARKET SUCH AS THE EUROPEAN CAPITALS THAT YOUVE GIVEN AS A COMPARISON!!!

Its like comparing african airports to the USA-It just doesnt work that way!!

Its simple if the demand wasnt there and they didnt need it then they wouldnt build it!!!

And also if they really DIDNT NEED IT THEN WHY HAVE THEY SPENT 10 YEARS PLANNING IT AND ARE THEY EVEN CONSIDERING PRIVATISING IT??

Doesnt make sense???

Why go to so much time, monay and effort in doing this if they dont have a greater plan and see the bigger picture behind what they are doing???

They haven't they have said they want an airport and now decided they don't have the money! That's why if it is true, they want an outside tender for it..they don't want to finance it. My take on this is that the whole NE Brazil development plan is a ham fisted development plan which hope that loads of foreigners will come in to pay for this development..then every stage of the way it seems a real mess like reversed planning, Eco worries, false dawns and rumours. A real muddle and this is exactly why people who have been sold down the river with by sophisticated property sellers using well produced and convincing websites which distort the real world that Brazil is, should be very very careful when putting their money into long term projects.

Put is like this Dee...if this new airport is a dead ccert as claimed by many...why are they only now looking at ways to finance it. How many websites or developers say "there MIGHT be a new airport in Natal"...answer none...why not?

Now why doesn't that surprise me?

Comparing Brazilian airports with European cities? heheheh

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