Tropical Brazil Struggles to Woo Tourists
6/17/98
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Title: Tropical Brazil Struggles to Woo Tourists
Source: Reuters
Status: Distribute freely with proper credit to source
Date: 6/17/98
Byline: James Craig
PRAIA DO FORTE, Brazil, June 18 (Reuters) - Palm-lined beaches, bikini-clad
women, virgin Amazon rain forest, the world's most famous carnival. Sounds like
the recipe for a perfect vacation, right?
Wrong!
Despite abundant natural beauty and newfound economic stability, Brazil
has been left out of a global tourism boom that began in the 1980s as it
struggles to shake its image as a dirty, crime-ridden and chaotic developing
country.
Crumbling infrastructure, poor services, persistent violence and expensive
airline and hotel rates continue to plague what should be one of the world's
premier tourist destinations, industry experts said.
``Today's situation is chaotic,'' said Emirio Odebrecht, president of local
builder Odebrecht SA which is involved in hotel construction. ``There isn't the
mentality or qualified personnel to promote service to the tourist. We don't
have the manpower to maintain or operate this sector and we are losing
business.''
ONCE UPON A TIME
It was not always this way in South America's largest country.
In the 1950s and 60s, Rio de Janeiro was the holiday destination of choice for
the world's jet set. While the rest of the country was largely ignored,
tourists flocked to the so-called Marvellous City, its world-famous Carnival
and spectacular horseshoe-shaped beaches.
Brazil's long decline began in the last decade, when tourism throughout Latin
America stagnated as a result of guerrrilla wars and economic chaos Rio de
Janeiro, in particular, was hit by surging crime and hyperinflation.
David Tuch, a hotel construction consultant, remembered terror on Rio's
beaches. ``Poor kids would come down from the slums and 50 or 100 of them would
form a line and sweep down the beach, taking anything they wanted,'' he said.
``It scared tourists and Brazilians.''
Smaller cities were not immune. Berta Farina, a tour guide in the northeastern
city of Salvador, recalled when bandits intercepted a vanload of 12 newly-
arrived tourists as they left the airport. ``They used a car to block the road
and held up the van,'' she said. ``They took everything: wallets, watches,
cameras, even suitcases.''
By the early 1990s, stories from disgruntled tourists reverberated through the
industry, devastating Rio's tourist trade and virtually eliminating travel by
foreigners to more remote areas of the country.
In 1994, Brazilian tourism was slammed again, this time by an anti-inflation
plan, which brought welcome economic stability based on a strong currency but
also made Brazil too costly for many foreign tourists.
Those who did visit Brazil were not always engaged in simple tourism. Child
prostitution, catering mostly to European men, flourished in the country's poor
northeast.
REBOUND IN THE WORKS
Today, industry experts say, tourism is rebounding thanks to stability and a
new government effort to create jobs to soak up thousands of unemployed people
displaced by economic restructuring.
Personal safety, meanwhile, has ceased to be the No. 1 worry among visitors to
Brazil, according to a government survey. Leading the list now is filth, with
violence falling to third place behind poor service.
``The government has started to respond and that is opening up the whole
country,'' said Geoffrey Lipman, president of the World Travel & Tourism
Council, attending a tourism conference in the northeastern resort of Praia do
Forte.
Caio Luiz de Carvalho, president of government tourism agency Embratur, said
tourism as measured by the number of foreign and domestic visitors has bounced
back sharply from the lows reached in the problem-plagued early 1990s.
``Tourism is up 70 percent in three years,'' he said.
His figures may overstate the increase since they include business travelers,
who have poured into Brazil as the country's improved economic prospects draws
foreign investors.
But industry experts said a travel boom was indeed under way largely among
Brazilians themselves although the number of foreign tourists was also rising.
The tourism industry directly and indirectly accounts for 7.8 percent of
Brazil's gross domestic product of $830 billion.
The global average is about 11 percent while in tourist havens like the
Caribbean it accounts for more than 25 percent.
HOPES FOR NORTHEAST TO RIVAL CARIBBEAN
Visitors say they see a change. ``When I first came here in 1993, I was told
'Don't go out for a walk on the seawall' or 'Don't go out of your hotel alone
at night','' said American Bill Cook on a visit to Salvador. ``Now, I see three
times as many police.''
Violent Rio, still Brazil's top drawing card thanks to its postcard setting,
may take years to recover its former status as a premier tourist destination.
But officials see it replaced by the northeast's thousands of miles of
unspoiled tropical beaches and exotic Afro-Brazilian culture.
``We think the Northeast could be the world's second Caribbean,'' said
Flavius Ferrari, director of Brazil's Renaissance hotel chain.
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