Brazil’s Post-Outbreak Comeback Drew One Million Visitors

More than one million international tourists entered Brazil in the first four months of 2022, a 60 percent increase over the number of global visitors the South American nation hosted in all of 2021, said officials at Embratur, Brazil's international tourism promotion agency.

Brazil hosted 600,000 international visitors in 2021, Embratur officials said in a statement Tuesday. The nation is seeking to rebuild its visitor arrival numbers following two years of pandemic-driven declines. Brazil welcomed 2.1 million international visitors in 2020, a 66 percent downturn compared with 2019 arrival figures.

Brazil's U.S.-based travelers, traditionally the country's second-largest source of foreign visitors (behind Argentina), declined from 590,520 in 2019 to 172,105 in 2020. This year's visitor arrivals upturn and "other indicators, such as the increase in the number of flights to Brazil," indicate that "the international public's interest in the country is back," said officials.

Embratur will sponsor advertising campaigns in "priority markets" in 2022 including in New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, Houston and Washington, D.C. The agency is also launching TV and social network advertising promoting travel to Brazil, along with initiatives to spotlight the country abroad, including participation in travel fairs, congresses and roadshows with operators, travel agents and associations.

"Our campaign promotes the image of Brazil in one of the most important markets for our country," said Silvio Nascimento, Embratur's president. "It boosts tourism and generates employment, income and opportunities for the sector, by attracting even more North American tourists, who are always on our radar. Our expectation is that we will soon return to pre-pandemic numbers."