Increased Access Drives Brazil’s Visitor Growth
Brazil’s tourism profile among Americans reached unparalleled heights in the earlier half of this decade when the South American nation hosted back-to-back international sports tournaments: the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
One million foreign tourists visited Brazil during the World Cup, according to officials at Embratur, the Brazil Tourist Board. More than 60 percent were visiting for the first time and U.S. and Canadian residents bought more than 200,000 match tickets, trailing only Brazilian purchases, said FIFA. Meanwhile, flights to Brazil increased by 289 percent between in the weeks prior to the 2016 Rio Olympics compared with the same period in 2015.
In the years since the country’s tourism officials have followed up on those high-profile events with a program of measures designed to ease American and Canadian travel to the country, even as the government struggled with economic and political unrest.
By Brian Major via Travel Pulse