Brazil’s plan to double tourists in three years

For people around the world, Brazil conjures up images of the exotic, the exuberant, and the exciting. You would be hard pressed to find anyone around the world who would turn down the opportunity to visit. But, if that’s the case, then why aren’t more people coming?

Brazil attracted 6.6 million tourists in 2018, less than one-quarter of the total visitors to Austria (which is smaller than Brazil’s north-eastern state of Pernambuco). Almost twice as many people attended matches in the second tier of the English football league last year than visited the so-called “land of football.”

While Brazil’s tourism numbers are steadily on the rise, with 2018’s figures 1.5 million higher than 2010, the Ministry of Tourism is understandably not satisfied. This month, the government republished its 2018-2022 National Tourism Plan, which sets the lofty goal of reaching 12 million foreign visitors per year by the end of the project.