MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brazilian tourism industry lost some US$ 50bn and 13% of sector jobs in 2020

“It is a huge toll, and recovery will probably take until 2022 or 2023”, said CNC economist Fabio Bentes in the report.

The Brazilian tourism sector lost 261.3 billion Reais (some US$ 49bn) last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the National Confederation of Commerce, Goods, Service and Tourism (CNC) said on Thursday.

In a report, the CNC said that the figure represented the period between March and December 2020, that is, from the arrival of the novel coronavirus infection in the country. Taking into account all of 2020, the losses totaled about US$51 billion.

“It is a huge toll, and recovery will probably take until 2022 or 2023. We have already seen some recovery in trade and agribusiness, but not in the service sector,” said CNC economist Fabio Bentes in the report.

The pandemic also caused the loss of 397,100 formal jobs in Brazil's service sector, a 13% reduction compared to 2019 and the largest job loss among all sectors of the Brazilian economy.

For 2021, the CNC projects a contraction of 9.7% in the Brazilian tourism sector.