The rivalry between Argentina and Brazil is legendary, particularly on the football pitch.
In 2014 we went to watch the World Cup in Brazil, and walking to the stadiums or the fan zone our family group, bedecked in Argentina shirts, was frequently heckled by rowdy locals in passing vehicles (I don’t understand Portuguese but it didn’t seem very friendly.)
One bar in Curitiba, where we were based, was offering a free pint for every game won by Brazil… and any match lost by Argentina!
A friendly Brazilian family invited us to their home to watch a game, and their kids had stuck all the Argentina players upside down in the Panini sticker book, apparently as some kind of witch hex.
Returning from our Brazil holiday, we stopped for lunch in Paraguay to watch Brazil-Chile in the last round of 16.
My wife Alicia, like most Argentines, bridles against Chilean pretensions to Argentine territory ever since the dispute over the Beagle Channel which started before she was born, and resents what she regards as their “betrayal” during the Falklands War.
But settling down for the match, in which all the Paraguayan locals were supporting Brazil, she was cheering for Chile.
As she said: “Usually it’s everyone against Chile: but in football it’s all against Brazil.”
And yet, so far this year, Argentines have been flocking to Brazil in record numbers; and, it appears, receiving a warmer welcome than Messi arriving in Latino-heavy Miami.
Stats on foreign visitors to Brazil for the first six months of 2025 show a 48% year on year increase, with an additional 5.3 million visitors from abroad compared to January to June 2024.
Of these, almost half (2.3 million) came from Argentina: that’s nearly three times as many as the holidaymakers arriving from the second and third ranking countries combined, Chile (442,993) and the USA (410,189).
Meanwhile, figures for January to March 2025 show the number of foreign visitors arriving for tours in Argentina 25% down on 2024.
More seriously for a government which is trying to wrestle the Argentine economy back into shape after years of rampant inflation, the difference between revenue from incoming and outgoing tourism in the first quarter was a negative of US$3.5 million.
In 2025 Easter came late (on the third weekend of April), which should have given a massive boost to tourism, especially in the Quebrada de Humahuaca, where we took guests to enjoy the colourful religious parades.
But while 699,000 visitors arrived from abroad, twice as many Argentines (1.4 million) left the country to spend their holidays in Brazil, Chile and Paraguay.
Nobody who follows my blog will be surprised by any of this: I’ve been banging on since Christmas about how everything in Argentina is getting expensive.
Even during 2024, there was a fall of 2 million foreign visitors on 2023, and hotel occupation was 12% down year on year across the country.
The previous government was rightly lambasted for its shambolic mismanagement of the economy, but it did manage to boost post-Covid tourism with “Pay now, Travel later” promotions and discounts: highly appealing in an age of hyper-inflation.
As former tourism minister Matias Lammens tweeted earlier this year: “After years of uninterrupted growth in the number of tourists, the arrival of foreign visitors, internal flights, the creation of businesses and the generation of jobs, in 2024 fewer foreign tourists arrived, and nationals travelled far less across our country.
“Those tourists who today don’t travel to Argentina and those Argentines who no longer travel around our country mean less income for the industry, fewer businesses investing, and fewer employees working in the sector.”
So is now a good time to visit Argentina?
Yes, some things are expensive, but food and wine remains relatively cheap, and waiters will be delighted with any tip close to 10%!
And the main attractions of the Quebrada de Humahuaca, Salinas Grandes and Valles Calchaquies wine region are much less busy: so don’t be put off if you’re planning a tour in Argentina.
