New record: Brazil welcomed almost a million overseas tourists in January

Brazil hit a new arrival record this past January, with 868,587 overseas tourists, according to the Brazilian Agency for the International Promotion of Tourism (Embratur).

The figure is equivalent to 100,000 more visitors than in the same month in 2019 and 2020, before the pandemic. 

In 2019, 756,883 international tourists visited Brazil, and in 2020, 750,457. Compared to December, the growth was 109 per cent, when 414,752 visitors from abroad arrived in Brazil.

According to the tourism authority, the return of post-pandemic tourism in Brazil in 2022 could have been faster than the international average. 

The regions with the best performance number of international tourism arrivals post-pandemic were the Middle East (83 per cent) and Europe (80 per cent). Brazil lagged behind African countries (63 per cent) and the Americas (66 per cent).

Embratur estimates that more than 1.28 million foreign visitors will enjoy the Brazilian summer this year. 

Most visitors will come from Argentina and the United States. For the current Brazilian government, the country is experiencing a moment of reopening to the world, expecting to attract tourists this year and promote dialogue and international cooperation.

The primary destinations seeing an increase in visitors are Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Florianópolis, Salvador, Porto Alegre, Belo Horizonte, Recife, Curitiba, and Brasília.

In January, foreigners spent US$604 million in the country, the Ministry of Tourism reported from a statistical bulletin of the Central Bank. 

The value represents an increase of 3.8 per cent compared to January 2020, a pre-pandemic period, when US$582 million was spent. Compared to 2022, the improvement reached 43.5 per cent.

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