São Paulo – In 2011, companies in the Tourism sector in Brazil had revenues of R$ 50.9 billion, growth of 18.3% over 2010. With this, the optimism of businessmen in the area has also grown: 87% hope for expansion of business in 2012. This may be seen in the Annual Research of Economic Conjecture of Tourism (Pacet), promoted by Getúlio Vargas Foundation (FGV) ordered by the Ministry of Tourism and promoted on Monday (20).
“Most of tourism in Brazil is business,” explained Leonardo Vasconcelos, Pacet’s technical coordinator at FGV. He pointed out that 80% of tourism in the country is domestic and that 20% is international. According to Vasconcelos, as the majority of visitors that Brazil receives from abroad are from countries in the region, which are not very populous, the number of foreigners is not that expressive.
The optimism of businessmen in the sector, however, is based much on local as domestic matters. “There is growth in travel intentions of Brazilians. There are middle class families that, after acquiring other products, start dreaming about trips,” said Vasconcelos. “In international matters, the image in Brazil is very favourable abroad, due to the [2014] World Cup, and also due to news in the media about the country, more favourable in recent years,” he pointed out.
According to figures in the Tourism Economic Performance Bulletin, also developed by the FVG for the Ministry of Tourism, the good expectations of businessmen for 2012 seem to be becoming concrete, as sector revenues in the first half of this year were 10% greater than those of the same period in 2011.
Even the international crisis did not strongly affecting travels in the country. In 2011, there was growth of 14% in international arrivals in the country and 16% in domestic arrivals, as against 2010. “People have started choosing domestic tourism, in favour of international tourism,” said Vasconcelos.
Regarding the research
Pacet was promoted with the 80 largest companies in the sector: it included travel agencies, car rental, hostelling, travel operators, event organizers, fair promoters, air transport, road transport and receptive tourism sector organisations.
The receptive tourism sector presented the greatest growth in revenues: 33.5%. Then came the housing (22.2%), travel agency (19.5%) and air transport (18.2%) sectors.
*Translated by Mark Ament
