Rio - Incentive vacations - trips offered by companies to outstanding employees - was the theme of a meeting on Friday (27) between nine British travel agents who are participating in the Brazilian Institute of Tourism's (Embratur) "Brazil Caravan" project and Brazilian representatives of the tourism sector. The goal of the project is to familiarize foreign travel agents with the infrastructure of vacation destinations in Brazil. The meeting was also attended by representatives of the Brazilian Tourist Office (EBT) inaugurated in London in June of this year. The participants visited tourist sites in Rio and departed for Salvador and Manaus.

According to Silvana Nascimento, the executive in charge of the EBT in London, the meeting provides British travel agents the opportunity to promote Brazil as a vacation option for people in the United Kingdom. "In 2002, only 146 thousand British citizens visited the country. We are talking about a market in which four out of every five people have already traveled abroad, on business or for vacation. We have an enormous potential," Nascimento said.

The World Tourism Organization estimates that the tourism segments in which growth worldwide will be the greatest over the next 20 years are events travel, incentive vacations, and adventure trips.

Agência Brasil
Reporter: Aline Beckestein
Translator: David Silberstein
08/30/2004