Brazil has everything to become the new frontier of development of the theme and aquatic parks of the world. This was confirmed by the industry's top leadership, the President of the International Association of Parks and Tourist Attractions (IAAPA), Greg Hale, Vice President of Disney. The country has a favourable climate, large areas available, a friendly culture to this type of entertainment and a highly qualified consumer market - Brazil is the third largest emitter of tourists to Florida, behind only Canada and the United Kingdom.
The Brazilian government has been working on improving the business environment to attract the biggest investors in the sector. Some adjustments are being processed in the country's tax system to facilitate the importation of the necessary equipment for the implementation and updating of the local theme parks.
Currently, Brazil has just over ten medium and large parks. They receive around 17 million visitors a year, an outcome of R$ 2 billion and generate 30 thousand jobs. The numbers are extremely small compared to the potential to be developed. We can do more. We can be the HUB of this type of activity in South America and the IAAPA world congress is the ideal occasion to put the country on the shelf of this booming market.
According to a study carried out by the entity that represents the parks in Brazil, adjustments in the regulatory frameworks in progress will generate an investment of R$ 1.9 billion and 56 thousand new jobs over the next five years. The projection takes into account only the modernization and expansion of establishments already in operation, not counting on the possible attraction of international undertakings to the country.
An overview of the presence of parks in the world makes it clear that the new frontier of development for this type of enterprise is Brazil. After decades of industry expansion in the world, our time has come.
In North America, we have Orlando, the global mecca of parks, which generates 370,000 direct and indirect jobs and has an impact of more than $ 50 billion on the local economy for tourism. In Europe, Euro Disney, on the surroundings of Paris, registers more than twice as many visitors as the Eiffel Tower, an icon of world tourism. In the United Arab Emirates and Asia, the sector experienced a strong expansion in the last two decades, with the parks leading the process of developing regional tourism.
Countries such as China, South Korea and Vietnam have bet on this activity to leverage their economies and now reap the rewards. In South Korea, for example, the number of foreign tourists jumped from 5.3 million in 2013 to 17.2 million in 2016. Vietnam also had a significant increase in international tourist traffic. The number of visitors increased from 1.35 million to 10 million from 1995 to 2016. In both cases, the implementation of renowned parks is singled out as one of the main reasons.
The top ten theme park groups in the world together receive 438.26 million visitors per year. The number is larger than the population of South America. The figures give the dimension of the impact of the sector in the economies that perceive the value of it. The Brazilian government has opened its eyes to this opportunity and wants to attract the world's top theme parks. The entrepreneurs that bet on Brazil will grow along with the country.
By Marx Beltrao, Minister of Tourism of Brazil