Why aren’t tourists flocking to Brazil?

From Rio de Janeiro’s beaches to the breathtaking Iguaçu Falls, Brazil is a land that lends itself well to tourism. Or so it would seem. Each year, Brazil attracts just 6 million tourists – and most of them come from our neighboring countries. And while the world is now traversing the globe like never before, Brazil has not joined in on the party. Our tourism industry has been stagnating since the late 1990s.

Despite being blessed with some of the world’s most diverse ecosystems, Brazil attracts fewer tourists than Miami alone. Even the Eiffel Tower upper deck draws more people than Latin America’s largest country. Why is this?

Paulo Rabello de Castro, president of Brazil’s National Development Bank, has an explanation. Using data from the Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics (IBGE) and Rio de Janeiro’s Public Security Institute (ISP), Castro claimed that security problems have a devastating effect on tourism. Castro argued that increased violence in post-Olympic Rio, combined with the continued effects of the economic crisis, has led to a fall in investments and job losses within the sector. “The issue of tourism is linked to security. The issue began to take on a federal dimension,” he says. “I think we’re still losing the game.”

Rio de Janeiro in particular, with its postcard vistas and service-heavy economy, is already feeling the effects of a slump from the tourism industry. However, general competitiveness seems to be harming the industry more than security issues. Research from the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) annual World Tourism Competitiveness Index, published in April, actually showed that the industry has been slowly growing over the last decade. In 2007, the WEF ranked Brazil’s tourism industry 59th...