ORLANDO, Fla. — South American and Latin American countries continue to be a rising tourist base for Central Florida. According to VisitOrlando, in 2024 Brazil was Orlando’s third-largest international market, with nearly 700,000 guests.
What You Need To Know
MCO Reports that from March 2024 to March 2025, Toronto based flights had most travelers to Orlando
Jet Blue and Southwest were the top two international carriers into Orlando past year
Copa Airlines which is mostly flights from South America were 7.1% of international flights into Orlando last year
Orlando Kart Center owner Andre Martins said that his customer base has changed over the past 10 years.
“The very beginning, I had a lot of local people, a lot of local and a lot of people from Europe used to come here,” Martins said.
Martins, who is from Brazil, said that in the past five years he has noticed a dramatic shift.
“Now I see a lot of people from South America are coming up. Lots of folks from Canada are coming down especially in winter. They come and stay for a long time,” he said.
The majority of customers coming to Orlando Kart Center are from the United States. He estimates that around 10% of his customers are from South America.
From March 2024 to March of last year, Toronto was the number one based international flight to Orlando, followed by London, Mexico City, San Jose Costa Rica, and São Paulo Brazil.
Later this month, Martins’ track will host the winter series Rok Cup, which race Program Director Michael Burrell says has predominantly Canadian and Latin American-based drivers who aspire to be professional racers.
Burrell reports “30% probably from Canada. Good representation from Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador.”
Burrell says that for just one event, a racer and or their team can spend up to $20,000 while they are in town.
This one event in Orlando will have up to about 1,000 people on hand for the three-day event in the coming weeks.
VisitOrlando ran a fall and winter campaign from September to mid-December of last year to encourage travel from Canada to Orlando. They also sent members to Brazil for the country’s sales week.
Martins says that whatever they are doing, it is working.
“Normally we have 20-30% more drivers that any other track in the country,” Martins said. “Yes, I want to pump because I have a nice track, but it’s Orlando why they come.”
International travel in fiscal year 2024-2025 at MCO was up about 9%. The top five most flown international airlines into MCO this past year were JetBlue, Southwest, Air Canada, Copa Airlines, and Virgin Atlantic.