Brazil Tourism Report Q3 2009

In common with many industries and many countries at present, the signals on the state of Brazil's tourism industry are best described as unclear and possibly as contradictory.

The generally expressed view is that a decline in international tourist arrivals will be largely offset by increases in internal tourism. Jeanine Pires, president of the Brazilian Institute of Tourism (Embratur), is more optimistic. She recently stated: ""The revenue generated by tourism [was] up 16.8% on 2007 - which had been our best year until then,"" and she remains upbeat for 2009.

On the other hand, regional airline GOL reported that while passenger numbers for April were up on those for March, (which in turn were better than February), the April 2009 figure was nonetheless down 14.8% compared with April 2008.

The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) forecast for 2009 is that both the direct and indirect measures of the tourism economy will grow slightly in nominal terms, but contract by about 0.5% in real terms, while total employment will hold steady. It expects growth over the 10-year period to 2019 to average a solid, but unspectacular 4.5% per annum.

BMI's baseline outlook for the Brazilian economy has fundamentally shifted towards our most pessimistic scenario. Having assessed the fourth quarter GDP data published by Brazil's Geographic and Statistical Institute (IBGE), we now see a sharper decline in output levels in the economy during the upcoming quarters. With little for the economy to fall back on aside from public spending programmes, we now feel that a prospective recovery during the final quarter of 2009 will not be sufficient to keep the full-year real GDP growth rate positive. As such, we are revising our economic growth outlook for Brazil to -0.6% (from positive 0.8% previously). Against the backdrop of such a poor fourth quarter, we see little uplifting data for the early stages of 2009.

Despite the short-term position, BMI remains confident in Brazil's macroeconomic fundamentals, forecasting average real GDP growth of 4.4% over our five-year forecast period.

Since the municipal elections in October last year, the shift in the balance of power in Brazil's ruling coalition government in favour of the allied Partido Movimento Democr??tico Brasileiro (PMDB) continued to gather pace. At the start of February the governing Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT) lost control of both the senate and congress to their junior partners, who now preside over a firm parliamentary majority and control the legislative agenda. We believe that all cards remain on the table, and expect Brazilian politics to remain eventful ahead of the 2010 election.