Record tourists and tourist spending in Brazil

Brazil counted 4,8 million tourists in 2009, 4,9% less than in record-year 2008 when 7,2 million tourists visited the country.
In 2010 the number of tourists is expected to be around 7,8 million tourists and by 2014 BMI forecasts that number to grow to 9,2 million.

Last April,, foreign tourists spent US$ 461 million in the country, the largest value ever recorded in the month since 1947. The total for the first four months of the year is US$ 2.116 billion.

In December, the Brazilian government announced its Plano Aquarela 2020 that aims to double the number of foreign visitors in the next ten years. The 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games, that will be hosted by the country, should be instrumental to reach this target.  You can find the full presentation here.

Interesting is to see the table of the countries form which tourists growth was fastest in the period 2003-2005 (page 23 and 24).
Belgium ranks lowest, with number of tourists to Brazil growing from 29.237 to 30.037.  Holland only has 1,6x the number of habitants of Belgium, but they have 2,8x the number of people visiting Brazil and also growing at double the growth rate of Belgium (31% to 16%).  Belgium is clearly “onder de kerktoren”.

Also interesting:
60% of all international tourists visit Rio de Janeiro (up from 52%), Florianopolis ranks with 7% (up from 4%), in the same league as Natal (8%), Fortaleza (8%) and Recife (7%), which grow on a much slower pace (1%).  Visits to Salvador plumetted from 21% to 14 % and also visits to Foz do Iguacu go down from 12 to 11%.

And 60% of the incoming international tourists come for the second or more time to Brazil (read: repeat business is high).

31,5% of all tourists visit Rio (going slightly down from 33,9%) and 12,1% visit Florianopolis (going up from 11,9%).  More tourists visit Florianopolis than Salvador (11,5%), Fortaleza (6,4%) or Natal (5,8%).

Tags: tourism brazil