Patrícia Landim
Reporter - Agência Brasil

Brasília - The hotel sector possesses one of the greatest potentials for job creation in Brazil and is an important consumer of industrial goods. This is the conclusion of a study sponsored by the Ministry of Tourism, together with the SEBRAE (Brazilian Micro and Small Firm Support Service). The study was presented yesterday (4) by the minister of Tourism, Walfrido dos Mares Guia.

"In the first two months of this year, 47 thousand formal jobs, with signed working papers, were created in tourism activities. For each formal job in tourism, nearly two indirect jobs are created," the minister observed. He emphasized that the sector has a direct impact on 240 thousand formal jobs and 60 thousand indirect ones.

The study, which was carried out by the FIPE (Economic Research Institute Foundation), at the University of São Paulo, also considered the direct effects, associated with economic activity within the sector itself, and the indirect effects, which correspond to the purchases of inputs. The sources of the data were registers from the ministry and the Brazilian Hotel Industry Association, as well as the Annual Study of Services by the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) and other publications. The research covered 2,116 hotels and inns from around the country.

Translation: David Silberstein