Impact of Tourism in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)?

2. Although Brazil has many attractions to offer visitors, such as over 7,400km of coastline, a beautiful tropical rainforest, and many other features, including waterfalls and wetlands, its tourism’s effect on the economy in the mid-1990s was minimal. Brazil’s tourism was comparable to Uruguay, a rather small country bordering Brazil. Although the tourism industry had grown since then, it is still less than impressive, especially considering Mexico earns three quarters more through the industry. The reason Brazil was lacking in tourism was due to high inflation, which caused more than 80% of visitors to the country to choose alternate accommodations to hotels, such as staying with friends. Besides inflation and high prices, the ineffective tourism infrastructure and raising crime rate has stunted Brazilian tourism growth and consequentially, the Brazilian economy. In addition, Brazil faced a heavy loss in tourism when Argentina suffered their economic crisis in the late 1990s and Argentineans were unable to afford visits to Brazil. However, hope still exists for Brazilian tourism. A new category of tourism has been created. In 2006, Brazil’s tourism industry was expected to positively affect the country’s Gross Domestic Product by about 2.8%, which would bring the total to $25.3 billion. That number is expected to rise in the next ten years to almost $36 billion. Not only is tourism expected to increase GDP, but analysts also assume it will raise employment. In 2006, Brazilian tourism employees, about 5,495,000 of them, accounted for approximately 6.4% of total employment in Brazil, while the entire industry accounted for 2.7% of total employment. In ten years, analysts expect Brazil’s tourism employment to reach around 6,855,000, or 6.6% of total employment in Brazil. Although, the country’s tourism employment is expected to rise in the next ten years, the entire tourism industry is expected to decrease by 0.1%. 3. Tourism in Brazil is a growing sector and key to the economy of several regions of the country. The country had 5.1 million visitors in 2010, ranking in terms of the international tourist arrivals as the second main destination in South America, and third in Latin America after Mexico and Argentina. Revenues from international tourists reached US$5.9 billion in 2010, showing a recovery from the 2008-2009 economic crisis. Historical records of 5.4 million visitors and US$6.775 billion in receipts were reached in 2011. Brazil offers for both domestic and international tourists, an ample gamut of options, with natural areas being its most popular tourism product, a combination of ecotourism with leisure and recreation, mainly sun and beach, and adventure travel, as well as historic and cultural tourism. Among the most popular destinations are the Amazon Rainforest, beaches and dunes in the Northeast Region, the Pantanal in the Center-West Region, beaches at Rio de Janeiro and Santa Catarina, cultural and historic tourism in Minas Gerais and business trips to São Paulo city. In terms of the 2011 Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI), which is a measurement of the factors that make it attractive to develop business in the travel and tourism industry of individual countries, Brazil ranked in the 52nd place at the world's level, third among Latin American countries after Mexico and Costa Rica, and seventh in the Americas. Brazil main competitive advantages are its natural resources, which ranked 1st on this criteria out of the 139 countries considered, and ranked 23rd for its cultural resources, due to its many World Heritage sites. The TTCI report also notes Brazil's main weaknesses: its ground transport infrastructure remains underdeveloped (ranked 116th), with the quality of roads ranking in the 105th place; and the country continues to suffer from a lack of price competitiveness (ranked 114th), due in part to high ticket taxes and airport charges in the country, as well as high prices and high taxation in general. Safety and security have improved significantly, ranking in the 75th place in 2011, up from the 128th position in 2008.