World Cup 2014 attracts half a million tourists in Brazil

Sao Paulo, Brazil : The 2014 FIFA World Cup has attracted more than half a million tourists to Brazil. World Cup 2014 begins today (June 12, 2014) as host Brazil open the tournament against Croatia.

The month-long tournament sees 32 nations compete for a place in the final in Rio on 13 July.The opening match will be preceded by a ceremony in Sao Paulo that pays tribute to nature, people and football.

Last year more than a million people took to the streets of major Brazilian cities to protest against what they see as excessive spending on the World Cup.

The host country’s government is keen to prevent a repeat of some of the violence seen at those protests, and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has said she will not allow violent demonstrations to mar the World Cup, BBC reports.

The 2014 World Cup is the first global football championship held in South America in almost 40 years and the first Olympic Summer Games ever will be staged in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.

According to Brazil Tourist Board , Brazil is expecting twice the number of visitors that it has in normal years. In 2010, about 5 million visitors came to the South American country. That is a very low number compared to France which has almost 80 million visitors a year and the US with 60 million.

There are two main reasons why Brazil has not been a popular tourist attraction over the years. For one, it is very far away from Europe and flight costs make it an expensive place to go to and secondly the country’s crime rate has been scaring off many potential tourists.

Brazil’s economy is booming and the money that it is generating is being invested in infrastructure and projects for the future. Airports are being improved, roads are being built and public transportation expanded. New hotels are being constructed and more and more people are being employed and trained to handle the influx of tourists in the coming years.

 The Brazilian government hopes that successful sporting events will give the country a major boost in tourism, like the Sydney Olympics did in 2000 or the World Cup in South Africa in 2010.

As 12 cities prepare to host the matches of the football World Cup , the government hopes that the tourists will visit spectacular attractions that Brazil offers, like the Iguacu Falls in the south, or the Amazon rainforest in the north and central parts of the country.

In order to make things go smoothly during the games Brazilian authorities are trying hard to tackle crime especially in the slums of Rio de Janeiro..
The 3.7 million people who will travel around Brazil during the World Cup falls short of the 6.6 million tourists who traveled in the country during Carnival this year .

With 600,000 foreign soccer fans preparing to descend on the World Cup host nation this week, and 3 million Brazilian fans travelling around the country, there are grave fears the children’s plight will only get worse due to sex tourism ,, BBC reports.

World Cup 2018 and 2022 will be held in in Russia and Qatar respectively.- Agencies

June 12, 2014