São Paulo – The Brazilian Tourism Institute (Embratur) will launch today (6th) its new Program for Supporting the Attraction and Promotion of International Events, geared towards attracting sports events. The country wants to take advantage of the visibility resulting from its hosting of the FIFA World Cup 2014 and 2016 Olympic Games in order to attract up to 240 competitions with potential to take place in Brazil.
“The main objective is not only to bring events into Brazil, but also to diversify the cities that host them, and work to prolong the length of stay of tourists in the country, so as to increase the revenues obtained, and thus benefit local economies and societies,” said the president of Embratur, Jeanine Pires, in a press release published by the institute.
In order to attain the goal of hosting more international competitions, Embratur is going to count on support from 32 Brazilian sports federations. According to a release issued by the institute, “the promotion of Brazil as a host to two of the world’s largest sports events, the infrastructure that will remain, and the country’s global exposure creates exceptionally good conditions for attracting international sports events related to those modalities.”
The program’s strategy involves determining all of the sports modalities for which there are global competitions or regional legs of tournaments that may be hosted by Brazil, making use of existing sports equipment, as well as of equipment that will be built for the 2011 Military World Games, The FIFA World Cup 2014, and the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
“The program’s main actions include coordinating and crafting bid dossiers, introducing bidding cities to members of international host city selection commissions, producing promotional material for the events, and sending of material on Brazil to directors of international associations that promote events the country might host,” says Embratur’s press release.
The institute is also going to create the Meetings Brazil program, to promote the so-called MICE segment (Meetings, Incentive, Congress & Exhibitions), which has a worldwide turnover of US$ 30 billion. The program will bring together the segment’s various organizations, plus sports associations. The aim is to promote Brazil as a destination that possesses the infrastructure to host any type of international event.
According to estimates, 380,000 tourists will visit Brazil during the 2016 Olympics, Rio de Janeiro, and the preparatory phase for the games should create 120,000 jobs per year in the country.
According to a Survey of Potential Socioeconomic Impact of the Hosting of the 2016 Olympics by the City of Rio de Janeiro, conducted by Fundação Instituto de Administração (FIA) by request of the Ministry of Sports, the Olympics in Brazil should have an impact of US$ 11 billion on the GDP from 2009 to 2016, and of US$ 13.5 billion from 2017 to 2027.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
