Brazil tries to kick-start tourism

Brazil has everything to offer the visitor: 7,300 km of coastline, much of it empty, endless beaches; the planet's biggest rainforest; an area of wetlands full of alli­gators and jaguars; colonial cities and spectacular waterfalls.

 The Bahia coast in north­east Brazil is a particularly attractive area for         tourism. Several luxury resorts have been built there. Recently a $170 million five-hotel com­plex at Sauipe opened. With its 18-hole golf course and designer shops, Sauipe is hoping to attract rich, foreign visitors.

The tourist industry had problems in the past because of high inflation which led to short-term planning. Hotels, however, are long-term investments, often with payback periods of over 15 years. If resorts such as Sauipe are going to attract signifi­cant numbers of tourists, they have to solve several problems. For a start, Brazil needs cheaper and more frequent international air travel. Brazilian airlines have actually decreased the number of scheduled international flights in the past two years because of currency devaluation.

Foreign visitors also demand a level of service that needs lengthy training - a considerable task for most of the resorts in the northeast which do not have a well-educated population to provide suitable staff.

The other big challenge for Sauipe's managers is to avoid the social problems that other new resorts have caused, when large num­bers of people have come from the interior in search of jobs, quickly creating slums. The resort is hoping to deal with these pressures by setting up courses in the surrounding villages for making handicrafts which will be sold at Sauipe and by organising credit for local co-operatives to produce foodstuffs for the hotels.

Some people believe that the developers have not planned the new resorts properly. 'Sauipe is a resort without adequate infra­structure, training or plan­ning about how the indus­try will develop,' says Mario Beni, a professor of tourism at the University of Sao Paulo. Often created in the mid­dle of nowhere, he says, many of these resorts have poor transport links

and no local tourism or sports facilities to take advantage of. 'It is time to stop and think about these grand projects,' he adds.

Not true, replies the Bahia state government, which claims to have spent $2.1 billion over the past decade on basic tourism infrastructure, from roads to airports to sanitation.

 

Answer the following questions.

1. Where is the Bahia coast?

2. What does Sauipe offer to attract visitors?

3. Who is Sauipe trying to attract?

4. What problems does Brazil face in attracting more tourists?

5. What solutions have been mentioned?

6. What does Mario Beni say about the new resorts?

7. What do these numbers in the article refer to?

 a) 7300            b) 170 mln      c) 15             d) 2.1 bn

Imagine you are planning a new resort in your own country. Consider these questions and make up a story.

1. Where will you build it?

2. What sort of customers will you try to attract?

3. What facilities will you include?

 

Grammar review

Match the verbs to their meanings.

Hope                                      believe something will happen

Expect                                   decide in detail what you are going to do

Plan                                       wish something will happen

 

Complete the conversation with verbs from exercise 1 in the required form.

I’m ....................... to get a bonus at the end of the year, but I haven’t met all my sales targets, so I’m a little worried. My colleague June has met all her targets and she is ............... to get a good bonus. She is already ................... to go on an expensive holiday abroad and has got a lot of travel brochures.

 

Complete the sentences with the present continuous form of the verbs in brackets.

I ..................(meet) Mr Greiss next week. He .................. (arrive) on Tuesday night. On Wednesday I .................... (take) him to the factory. I .................... (not see) him on Thursday. But I ..................... (drive) him to the airport on Friday.

 

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