São Paulo – Of the foreign tourists currently in Brazil to attend the World Youth Journey (WYJ), 93% claim they mean to return to the country, and 65% are in Brazil for the first time. These are preliminary data from a survey that will profile the tourists who have come to the country for the event. The data was announced by the Brazilian minister of Tourism, Gastão Vieira, during ExpoCatólica, a religious items exhibition which opened last Saturday (20th) and will continue until Friday (26th) in Rio de Janeiro.
Over 4,000 people will be polled by Sunday (28th) and the final results will be disclosed in the next few weeks. “Preliminary figures reveal that religious tourism has a great potential for growth,” said Vieira. Over 1.7 million trips across the country were taken for religious purposes last year. Since its inception, ExpoCatólica has been visited by over 200,000 people from 170 different countries.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
