São Paulo – In January this year, Brazil registered the arrival of 734,636 passengers on international flights (regular and non-regular), which represents growth of 12.23% over the same period in 2009, when a total of 654,556 people arrived in the country. According to the Embratur, this is the best result registered in the period since 2000.
"In January, Brazil’s inflow of funds from international tourists also presented an excellent performance, with 14.2% growth over the same month last year. This combination – more arrivals and more expenses by foreigners – demonstrated that international tourism is already recovering from the retraction caused by the global crisis in recent years,” said Embratur president Jeanine Pires, in a press statement.
The greatest growth was registered in arrivals on charters flights, 15.1%. In total, there were 44,483 arrivals in January 2010, against 38,647 in the same month in 2009. Regular flights, in turn, grew 12.05% (690,153 arrivals in January 2010 and 615,909 in January 2009).
Currently, there are 906 direct weekly flights from abroad to Brazil. Latin America is responsible for 50.99% of international arrivals, followed by North America (23.4%), Europe (22.19%), Asia (1.77%) and Africa (1.66%). The expected international arrivals are calculated by Infraero and include foreign tourists and Brazilians returning to the country.
*Translated by Mark Ament
