Beyond Carnaval: Travel Expenses Should Be Seamless
Concise reflections, digests, and highlights of the week's significant news within Brazil's investment and innovation landscape.
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IN TODAY'S BEYOND CARNAVAL:
A Life With No Travel Expense Control
Growth of Traveltech
The Elephant In the Room: What If A Crisis Strikes Again?
A Life With No Travel Expense Control
Imagine you’re the CFO of a rapidly growing company with teams scattered across multiple cities. Business is booming, but with growth comes complexity - especially when it comes to managing your company’s travel expenses. Each month, your finance team spends countless hours chasing down receipts, verifying travel compliance, and manually inputting data into spreadsheets.
Despite your best efforts, travel costs keep spiraling out of control, and the constant stream of lost receipts and delayed reimbursements is frustrating your employees. To make matters worse, you have little visibility into where the money is going or how to optimize spending.
Now, picture a different scenario. With the click of a button, your employees can book flights, hotels, and rental cars through a single platform that automatically applies your company’s travel policies. All expenses are tracked in real time, with digital receipts instantly uploaded and categorized.
Your finance team no longer has to waste time on manual processes—instead, they can focus on strategic analysis, identifying trends, and finding ways to save. You have full visibility into your company’s travel spending, allowing you to make data-driven decisions and confidently manage your budget.
This is the reality that traveltechs offer. They provide a comprehensive tech that automates and optimizes the entire travel management process, helping companies save time, reduce costs, and enhance employee satisfaction.
As an often overlooked sector within tech, we thought it would be a good idea to decipher traveltech's potential for global investment in Brazil.
With the help of Onfly, this article explores what traveltech is, the problems it addresses, the global market size, and the emerging traveltech ecosystem in Brazil.
The Growth of B2B Traveltech
Onfly helped us with research
Business travel is a critical function for companies worldwide, driving sales, fostering client relationships, and enabling professional development. But we often take for granted how much work it really is.
Managing travel activities presents challenges, including high costs, booking processes that take a lot of work, and ensuring policy compliance. Enter B2B traveltech, which uses digital solutions to streamline travel management - but for companies.
Global Market Overview:
The global B2B traveltech market is booming, with spending expected to exceed $2 trillion by 2028. This growth is driven by the recovery of business travel post-pandemic, particularly in regions like Asia-Pacific and North America. The 2024 GBTA (Global Business Travel Association) report underscores the importance of traveltech in this growth, particularly in sectors like finance and professional services.
Brazil and Latam Market Overview:
When chatting with the team at Onfly, they sent us material that estimated the total addressable market (TAM) for business tourism in Brazil and Mexico to be around $28 billion - but I'm No Economist did its own research and found out that number to be $32.5 billion combined - even bigger than previously estimated by Onfly.
Business travel in Brazil is pretty obvious and driven by the country's diverse economy, including key sectors such as finance, agriculture, energy, and tech. Major business hubs like São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Brasília are cities prone to business travel, hosting international conferences, corporate meetings, and specific industry events each year. That ensures a steady flow of corporate travelers, both domestically and internationally.
Business tourism is a big deal in Brazil. The city of São Paulo only loses to Rio de Janeiro in the number of Airbnb listings, for example - with major neighborhoods surrounding the financial district (Faria Lima) with the highest number of rooms available for short-term rent.
And there's room for international cooperation too. With the Mercosur trade bloc playing a pivotal role in South American commerce, cities like Porto Alegre and Curitiba are poised to benefit from increased business travel related to trade agreements and economic partnerships within the region.
Again, Portuñol could easily become a reality!
What If A Global Crisis Strikes Again?
As the tourism industry enjoys a resurgence after the COVID-19 pandemic, there’s an unspoken but ever-present fear: What if another global crisis strikes? The world has seen how pandemics, geopolitical instability, or even significant economic downturns can bring the entire tourism sector to a grinding halt.
This "elephant in the room" is a constant threat looming over the industry. Traditional travel businesses, with their high operating costs and reliance on outdated systems, are particularly vulnerable to these disruptions. Many of these businesses struggled to survive the last pandemic, and some didn’t make it at all.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, while traditional travel agencies and businesses struggled with cancellations, refunds, and logistical nightmares, traveltechs technology allowed businesses to quickly adjust their travel plans, manage expenses digitally, and maintain visibility over travel spending in real-time.
This not only minimized disruptions but also positioned these traveltechs to capture the recovery as businesses resumed travel.
And boy, people are traveling for business:
Within this uncertain landscape, traveltechs emerge as a new breed of more resilient companies. These tech-driven travel companies are not only better equipped to survive such crises but also to thrive in their aftermath.
They have leaner operations, more flexible structures, and the ability to quickly adapt to changing conditions, traveltechs can navigate the turbulence better than traditional tourism businesses. By leveraging automation, real-time data, and digital platforms, they reduce overhead costs and enhance operational efficiency, making them more robust against external shocks.
They're capturing market share from less adaptable competitors and proving that in an industry prone to disruption, those who embrace technology are the ones who will emerge stronger. Not to mention the online-native nature of tech companies’ sales channels. In Brazil, online sales will top 79% of all tourism sales:
Traveltech is revolutionizing business travel management by integrating technology into all aspects of travel. From AI-powered booking systems to automated expense management, these solutions are designed to meet the demands of a fast-paced, globalized business environment. As businesses increasingly seek efficiency, traveltech is becoming a critical tool.
We'll talk more about it in the next edition. Stay tuned!
The event's first day showcased advancements in technology, sustainability, and entrepreneurship. It featured prominent speakers discussing the future of digital transformation, innovation ecosystems, and the role of startups in driving economic growth. Key sectors like health tech, agritech, and smart cities were also highlighted. Source
PUC-Rio launched an ambitious endowment fund, aiming to create a sustainable financial model that could eventually allow the university to offer free education. The initiative seeks to attract donations and manage resources to ensure long-term stability and academic excellence. Source
FTD Educação is looking for innovative edtech startups to invest in through its corporate venture capital (CVC) program. The initiative is focused on fostering technological solutions that can enhance educational experiences and address challenges in the learning process. Source
Parfin successfully raised $10M to expand its efforts in integrating cryptocurrency solutions into traditional financial systems. The funding will be used to develop technology that bridges digital assets with conventional banking, aiming to make crypto more accessible and seamlessly integrated into the financial ecosystem. Source
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Every Thursday 06:09 am (BR time), the Beyond Carnaval newsletter offers concise reflections, digests, and highlights of the week's significant news within Brazil's investment and innovation landscape.
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