São Paulo – The Brazilian Tourism Institute (Embratur) aims to attract chartered flights from other countries to Brazil. For this reason, on Wednesday (1), they released the Voo Direto (Direct Flight) programme, which will distribute R$ 8 million (US$ 4.6 million) for state secretariats throughout Brazil to developed projects for promotion of their destinations.
According to the International Market Director at Embratur, Marcelo Pedroso, the objective is to attract more foreign tourists to Brazil’s international airports. "We want to make possible the promotion of chartered flights and the diversification of the origin and destination within Brazil. We want to make the greatest use of the international airports [in the country] with markets that don’t yet fly here in flights without connections,” he said.
Still according to Pedroso, this project is not aimed at reducing passenger flow or decentralizing the passenger flow at saturated airports, like Cumbica, in São Paulo. "We do not aim to change annual demand. We want to bring new flights,” he said.
Each state interested in receiving foreign tourists should present a project for visitor attraction to the Embratur. This project may be an advertising campaign, promotion of events in the country of origin of potential visitors or even caravans of travel agents or journalists to learn about the destination to be promoted. The approved projects will receive funds according to their needs. The R$ 8 million are turned to all projects in the Voo Direto.
The call to participate in the program will take place on February 13. The states that want to participate should present their proposals up to March 12. The evaluation of programs presented and their approval will be concluded up to April 2nd. In May, the projects should already be executed, as, according to Pedroso, Embratur aims to make use of the start of the Summer in the northern hemisphere to attract leisure, not business tourists.
Embratur also plans to use the Voo Direto program as part of the "preparation" of Brazil for the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics, to take place in Rio de Janeiro. "In the long-run, we want to show new sites. We understand that we have to strengthen foreign knowledge about Brazil. We call states to be our allies,” said Pedroso.
*Translated by Mark Ament
