Brazil's tourism loses $48b in 2020 due to COVID-19

RIO DE JANEIRO — The Brazilian tourism sector lost 261.3 billion reals (about $48.726 billion) 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 $51.094 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 percent 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 percent in the Brazilian tourism sector.