Rio de Janeiro’s New Year’s Eve Breaks Tourist Record

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The 2019/2020 Rio City New Year’s Eve broke the record of 1.7 million domestic and foreign tourists. In the assessment of the president of the Tourism Company of Rio de Janeiro (Riotur), Marcelo Alves, this is a “fantastic” number.

“This is a great victory for Rio de Janeiro. It’s a motive for great celebration and joy and challenges ahead,” he said on Thursday, January 1st, in an interview with Agência Brasil. Of the tourists, 80 percent were Brazilians from other states and 20 percent were foreigners.

On January 12th, Rio will be the venue of an unprecedented strategic event planned to keep tourists in the city. The official opening show of Rio’s Carnaval will be held, using the main stage of the New Year’s Eve celebration in Copacabana.

The president of Riotur explained that the goal is to allow tourists to organize in advance to experience Carnaval in Rio. “We will have 51 days of Carnaval. As we are focused on filling the city with tourists, it is actions like this that prove and strengthen our vocation and solution that is tourism,” he said.

Jobs

The New Year’s Eve injected R$3 billion (US$750 million) into the city’s economy, according to the Riotur president. “This is important to us because there is significant consumption in the city, in hotels, bars, restaurants, ‘malls’ and, the more consumption, the more jobs. These major events in the city provide direct and indirect, fast, immediate jobs. This is our focus so that the city may emerge from the crisis immediately and we can have, throughout the year, this volume of jobs and movement.”

According to a survey conducted by Riotur with 1,312 tourists in the period between December 26th and 31st at the tourist service station set up on Copacabana beach, 59.3 percent of the national tourists interviewed were men and 40.7 percent were women.

The survey shows that visitors from São Paulo led the national tourists ranking with 29.6 percent, followed by Goiás (14.1 percent) and Rio Grande do Sul (12.5 percent).

The poll also showed that 70 percent of people reached Rio by plane, 22 percent by bus and eight percent by car. The preferred means of accommodation were hotels (55.6 percent), relatives’ homes (18.5 percent), ‘apart-hotels’ (7.4 percent) and rented houses or apartments (7.4 percent).

Marcelo Alves pointed out that the proximity between Rio and São Paulo results in the São Paulo residents representing a majority in the Rio celebration. “But the dollar’s rise was also relevant for us because it favors domestic tourism,” he said.

Among international tourists, 62.1 percent are male and 37.9 percent are female. They traveled by plane (98 percent) and by ship (2 percent).

The type of accommodation chosen by these tourists was hotels (62.1 percent), hostels (15.2 percent) and ‘apart hotels’ (13.6 percent).

Argentines topped the tourist rankings, followed by Chileans, shows the Riotur survey. “A total success, something for us to celebrate,” said Marcelo Alves.

Record in the year

According to Riotur, the promising figures are not limited to the New Year’s Eve period but extend to the whole of last year, which marked a record in tourism.

From January to November 2019, the city recorded a 12 percent increase in the number of passengers arriving at Mauá Pier and five percent at Rio’s Bus Terminal.

The visitor flow at tourist spots also increased. The growth in visitors using the Corcovado Train reached 17 percent, while there was seven percent increase on visitors to Sugar Loaf.

On New Year’s Eve, Copabana’s hotel occupancy reached 100 percent, according to a survey by the Rio de Janeiro’s Accommodation Syndicate (SindHotéis Rio), held on December 30th.

Next rank Ipanema/Leblon and Flamengo/Botafogo, with 94 percent each, Barra da Tijuca, in the west zone, and downtown reached 90 percent occupation each.

Source: Agência Brasil