Expedia Data Shows Growing Demand for Travel to Brazil

Expedia Data Shows Growing Demand for Travel to Brazil

Expedia, Inc. announced data showing growth in the number of online bookings to Brazil made on the more than 100 Expedia® and Hotels.com travel sites worldwide. "Bookings made on Expedia to Brazil have grown more than 90 percent over the past year," said Rafael del Castillo, Expedia director of market management for South America. "We're also seeing strong growth in the number of international travelers to Brazil, especially from the U.S., the U.K. Italy, France and Spain."

Expedia executives are in Rio de Janeiro this week to attend the annual ABAV trade show, which takes place Oct. 19-21. Expedia representatives will meet with local hotels and South American tourism and travel officials to discuss strategies for promoting travel to Brazil.

Expedia Media Solutions, the company's advertising division, has been working closely with Brazil's National Tourism Board, Embratur, and its advertising agencies in Europe, the U.S. and Brazil to promote the country as a tourist destination to international travelers.

Though Expedia Media Solutions only recently began working in Brazil, the team has already driven impressive results for local partners such as Othon Hotels. Working closely with Tomas Ramos, Othon's commercial director, Media Solutions helped the Brazilian chain develop a media campaign that has increased its gross bookings through Expedia by 78 percent and grown ADR by 49 percent.

The company's cost-per-click product, TravelAds, has also been increasing in popularity across Brazil as local hotels learn more about how to promote their properties on Expedia's sites. In fact, Brazilian hotel partners participating in TravelAds have experienced returns of more than 2000 percent on average on their investment.