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Powered by tourism and the real estate market, golf is really taking off in Brazil. The sport has now drawn the attention of two world icons: billionaire Donald Trump, and Jack Nicklaus - golfer of the century- working together on the same project for the first time. Brazil has always been renowned all over the world for its beaches, rich culture, music and the warmth of its friendly people. But all these features were not enough to attract a certain type of tourist - more precisely a species that leaves a trail of dollars wherever he or she travels, namely golfers. Peter Walton from Britain, who is chairman of the International Association of Golf Tour Operators (IAGTO), says that golfers spend 50% more than conventional tourists. “Golf tourism turnover is US$ 12 billion a year. More than 30% of the world's 50 million golfers take a golf-focused trip at least once a year. Golf tourism is growing four times as fast as tourism based on beaches and sun," said Walton on a recent trip to Brazil. " |
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Brazil is one of those few places which all people dream of visiting sometime in their lives - the romantic appeal of Rio de Janeiro, the mystery of the Amazon junle and the dazzling spectacle of the greatest Carnival parades on earth have featured on the list of ¨MUST¨of must international travellers for half a century. More recently, the range of attraccions has widened steadly: Salvador - the original colonial capital, Brasilia -the ultra modern new capital.The Pantanal - offeringspetacular wildlife tours in almost 90.000 square miles of natural and unspoilt marshland and last, but by no means least, the Brasilian coastline with 5.000 miles of beach, was voted one of the 10 top beaches in the world by the Washington Post. The Chapada Diamantina, an ecological paradise with cascades, canyons and underground lakes alreadyboasts four modern hotels and the Costa do Sauipe Resort -the first purpose-built world class leisure resort in Brazil. Without excessive optimism, Brazil is set to become a major destination for travellers of all types(back-packers, radical sports fans, acologists, study groups, charter group passagers and sophisticated up-market travellers) and is so latrge that all of these will find plenty of space for their needs. |
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Rio doesn't need carnival to enjoy
- The Rio cabdriver seemed
puzzled. ''The Carmen Miranda Museum?'' he asked me again in Portuguese.
I nodded and showed him the spot in downtown Rio on the tourist board's
map. But the map wasn't very good -- none of the looping highways
on which we were circling appeared on it.
The driver shrugged and pulled over to ask directions from a police officer, who didn't know where the museum was, either.
Adventure in the pantanal (NYT)
- FROM the outset, I knew that
the week I was about to spend in Brazil's spectacular Pantanal wetlands
in July would be a challenging one.
It wasn't that I was unfamiliar with the destination. A few months earlier, I had spent a couple of days at the Caiman Ecological Refuge, a 132,000-acre ranch with all the creature comforts and a 17,500-acre nature reserve, delighting in its mix of animal watching, horseback riding across sun-toasted savanna and hearty regional cuisine. From there I had headed for a weekend of rafting and snorkeling in the crystal-clear limestone rivers and lagoons of Bonito, the region's eco-tourism capital.
Mountain getaways for Cariocas
- Pedro and Teresa, the second
emperor and empress of Brazil after it gained its independence from
Portugal in the early 19th century, had the right idea. Each year,
around the arrival of summer in late December, they would flee the
heat, disease and intrigue of Rio de Janeiro, then the capital of
Brazil, and decamp to the cool and quiet of the mountains.
Dance of Life To Honor Death (NYT)
- I did not expect to be doing a solo samba in the middle of a circle surrounded by hundreds of Brazilians, but the Festival of the Good Death turned out to be more fun than its name would suggest.
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