Next, full the article by Bruno Omori, published in the magazine Alternativa, about the importance of tourism for economy and the role of gaming in this process:
In this election year, we need to indoctrinate the political, business and population leaders in the adoption of "Tourism as a Factor of Economic and Social Development" and thus generate employment and income. These are the strategic priorities of countries such as USA, France, Spain, Portugal and Mexico, where tourism is in the pages of economy.There are massive investments in the promotion and strengthening of destinations. Thus, only the US has generated US$ 240 billion with tourism, and France has received more than 85 million tourists. Brazil, according to the World Tourism Organization (WTO), is the first in the potential ranking of natural resources for tourism. Even Japan, which is the world's third-largest economy and traditionally a technology leader, has placed tourism as a major contributor to attracting exports. World tourism, according to the WTO, already represents 10% of global GDP. This is equivalent to more than 7% of exports, equivalent to 1.5 trillion dollars. With 1.2 billion tourists traveling around the world, this figure will reach US$ 1.8 billion in 2030. The US has overcome the economic crisis with tourism. In countries like France and Spain, the first product of GDP is tourism. Even in Mexico, which in the 1990s had a similar number of foreign tourists than Brazil today, receives more than 35 million visitors a year. Meanwhile, our country is parked at just over 6 million. What has changed in these countries is that tourism is seen as a factor of economic and social development. It is a priority sector for employment and income generation for the population and for the country. Only in the hotel market of the State of São Paulo, which in 2017 generated about R$ 7.4 billion (US$ 1.9bn) in daily rooms and R$ 1.5 billion (US$ 389mn) in food and beverages, we projected that we will have a growth of 5% to 7% in the rate of hotel occupancy and a 9% to 12% increase in demand for event, corporate and leisure tourism. What's more, we await the approval of gambling, more specifically of casinos, which will enable us to raise billions of dollars in tourist products in various parts of Brazil. We can affirm that the corporate market, the government and the community in general need, in an undeniable way, to renew the thoughts, the leaderships and the way of doing politics, with responsibility, ethics and smoothness, especially in this year of elections. And if in Brazil tourism is placed as a priority economic agenda for government, it will certainly generate resources to be applied in education, health and safety, which are requirements of Brazilian society, in addition to generating income, work and opportunities for the population.Source: GMB / Alternativa Magazine
