MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

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  GeoffWard2

  Let's hope our Dino gets some tourism worth promoting.
  
  Salvador (the old Capital of Brasil) & it's State (Bahia) are notably deficient in first-world tourist facilities and centres - eg decaying Colonial Pelourino and the coastal/beach facilities.
  Poor tourist port facilities, poor airport facilities, poor and few hotels, poor roads, and poor sports facilities for the world cup and olympics.
  All the beach bars have been bulldozed down and nothing has replaced them;
  the Portuguese colonial pavements have been patched/stripped out and largely replaced with concrete.
  The beach, bay and estuaries carry faecal bacterial loads that would close first-world beaches.
  Millions (billions?) of $reais of funds for a state capital Metro have gone missing and the Metro is a weeded-over, unuseable and unused white elephant.
  
  If other parts of Brasil are faring as badly as Bahia (and they are), our Dino will be promoting the aspiration rather than the substance.
  The world will visit Brasil, but only once.

  Jul 21st, 2011 - 03:28 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
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  lsolde

  Have you been to Angola, Geoff?

  Jul 22nd, 2011 - 09:22 am - Link - Report abuse 0
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  Fido Dido

  If other parts of Brasil are faring as badly as Bahia (and they are)
  
  Geoff, there you go again, without visiting other states in Brazil, you again picture the whole nation as if it's like there where you are. You just continue to show how illinformed you are and prove my point over and over what kind ignorant blowhard you are about topics you have no clue about. Travel to other states inside the country, what you HAVEN'T done at all. First visit than you bitch about your superiority (what is zero)
  
  Secondly, I've been to Salvador, it has many things to improve but you give the impression as if it's a hell hole there what is completely incorrect. You have some serious issues there with your wife and perhaps just hate it that you live there.

  Jul 23rd, 2011 - 05:03 am - Link - Report abuse 0
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  GeoffWard2

  Hi Isolde, Fido,
  been to many poor (and derelict) places, in Brasil & across the world. Been to rich places also in the same locations.
  
  It's, to me, a question of comparisons and expectations.
  
  Lula has sold Brasil to the world, for the World Cup and the Olympics, as a tourist mecca, an environmental experience, as a Developing World economy geared up to do these events across Brasil's sub-continent with First World elan.
  
  Firstly, Lulas imagination outstripped his organisation. Locating world events in so many cities across a huge country would be hard for a first world nation with transport and infrastructure in place. Trying to do it without the necessary infrastructure is a delusion based on foolhardiness.
  
  Throwing out the best of your tourist assets - the colonial architecture, the beach bars, the colonial pavements, etc. removes the very basis of the tourist experience. OK, there are new shopping malls in most cities, but this is just USA-relocated - and you don't have to go halfway around the world to see the same shops.
  
  Failing to pitch for these world events sufficiently far in the future does not give the nation a chance to build the necessary infrastructure.
  Brasil builds at Brasil's speed - which in many States is 'go slow' or 'stop', whereas Angola develops apace towards such capability with Chinese leadership and chinese construction populations.
  
  All our visitors to SP & Salvador want to visit the favelas! With cameras!
  The ousting of the Rio gangs from one or two favelas is doing nothing more than displacing them onto other gangs' turf. The favelas across the country are unstable, and certainly not the place to take your World Cup tourist mum and dad.
  
  Travel problems and off-limit/on-limit tourism looks the best we can expect.
  The events themselves will happen and will look good on TV,
  but the benefits for Brasil will be much less than they might have been with sufficient build-time, reduction of construction corruption, etc, etc, etc.

  Jul 23rd, 2011 - 07:06 am - Link - Report abuse 0
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  lsolde

  Geoff, the reason l asked if you'd been to Angola was because you were talking about colonial Portuguese pavements & it brought back memories of when l visited Moçàmedes(now Namibe) in Angola.
  lt had wrought iron balconies & cobblestone streets & l loved it.
  A lot like the old city in Manila.
  l would hope that they still exist. A definite tourist atraction.
  l see cloggs is his usual obnoxious self.

  Jul 23rd, 2011 - 09:28 am - Link - Report abuse 0
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