| The
Northeast of Brazil found its avocation: to be the tropical paradise where
Europeans spend and invest their euros. Portuguese, Spaniards, French,
Italians, Germans and Scandinavian are invading the region to do business,
spend holidays or enjoy their retirement in a place with pleasant climate
and at prices much more affordable than those in Europe. This movement
has two consequences. The first one is the increase in residential tourism.
A few thousand foreigners are buying apartments and houses this side of
the Atlantic - for holidays or even to live for good. In Ceará,
out of each ten new apartments for sale with prices over R$ 50,000, three
are purchased by foreigners. In Rio Grande do Norte, the Europeans bought
40% of the new houses and apartments sold last year.
The other consequence
of the invasion is the explosion of investments by European companies in
the hotel, touristic and real estate sectors of the Northeast. In the coast
of Bahia, seven tourist complexes will be built over the next two years.
Other 28 enterprises of medium and large size should be opened by foreigners
until 2010 in the coast of Rio Grande do Norte. In the next five years,
the European investments in new hotels, resorts and condos should exceed
R$ 4 billion (about US$ 1.8 billion), the equivalent to 8% of all foreigner
investments that the entire Brazilian economy received last year.
Both groups
of newcomers - investors and residents - are result of the same phenomen,
namely the increase in the flux of European tourists in the region. Since
the 1990s, the number of foreigner visitors in Bahia, Ceará and
Rio Grande do Norte was multiplied by four. This increase draw the attention
of corporations and hotel groups in Europe, which decided to build the
infrastructure necessary to serve their country fellows in Brazilian territory.
"Europe is a large market, and the interest on Brazil is growing more and
more", says José Antonio Correia, from Portuguese group DDC, which
is building a residential condom with thirteen apartment towers and 192
houses in the city of Eusébio, Ceará.
In Northeast,
the tourists of today are the immigrants of tomorrow. A good part of foreigners
who buy houses in the coast of Northeast is composed of visitors who came
for holidays and ended up enchanted with the life style, the scenery and
the local climate. "They buy residences because they want to spend more
time in Brazil", says Secretary of Tourism of Ceará, Allan Aguiar.
"Many of them are retired or want to start a small business over here".
Having just retired in his home country, the Swiss Marc Dizerens and a
French partner built the condo Baia Dourada (Golden Bay), in the south
of Bahia. Half of the loots were already sold, all for foreigners.
It was always
a belief that tourism is a natural avocation not only of the Northeast,
but of entire Brazil. The country has varied sceneries, 2000 beaches and
pleasant climate. The problem is that, despite it all, we receive per year
less visitors than the Louvre Museum, in Paris, or the minuscule Cingapure,
in Asia. If the Northeast is at last following its avocation, that's because
over the last ten years some problems in infrastructure started to be solved.
Over this period, new or refurbished roads, and works in basic sanitation
permitted the investment in condos and resorts in beaches located far away
from capitals.
.
The Hotel School
 Also,
efforts were made towards the formation of qualified work force. All the
students of the cooking course of the Hotel School Senac in Natal have
guaranteed jobs. Another measure of impact in tourism was the refurbishment
of the airports in the region. With the improvements in the aiports, there
was a growth in the number of both regular and chartered international
flights. Today, the airports of Salvador, Natal and Fortaleza receive,
combined, 105 international flights per week, twice as many as in 2003.
As most of them are direct flights, an European who, last decade, had to
spend twelve hours to arrive in the Northeast, after scales in Rio de Janeiro
or São Paulo, today takes only six hours to fly from Lisbon to Natal.
Besides, for
European standards, prices of hotels in Brazil are low. "An European who
spends holidays in the Northeast spends less than he would in Mallorca,
Spain, or Algarve, Portugal", says Marilia Cecilia Bodas, director of Lugares
no Brasil, a real estate agency with office in Lisboa which works with
Europeans. The value of the money is a strong argument when an European
decides to buy a holiday house or start a life in Brazil, usually
opening a
small hotel or restaurant. "Over here, I can eat out everyday in a different
restaurant, a luxury in France", says retired Xavier Huvelin, a 68 y.o,
Frenchman who opened a hotel in Porto de Galinhas, Pernambuco. For the
same price of an apartment of 100 sq.mt. in Madrid, a retired Spaniard
can purchase two penthouses with four suites overlooking the sea in João
Pessoa, Paraíba. "Middle class Europeans who live squeezed in small
places in the outskirts of their countries become enchanted with the possibility
or purchasing large houses, near the beach, in a place where the sun shines
all year long and fishermen sell lobsters for R$ 17 per kilo", says realtor
Arnaldo Jorge Vidal, from Ceará, who over the past four years especialized
in selling houses to Portuguese clients in Fortaleza.
The combination
of good quality of living at a low cost motivated the Portuguese Nelson
Baldaia, 64, and his wife Otilia, 61, to buy a beach house four years ago
in the Praia de Águas Belas, in the city of Cascavel, 60 km away
from Fortaleza.
.
Nelson
and Otilia
 They
were retired already, and in the beginning spent half year in Brazil and
hald in Portugal. "Now that we obtained the permanent visa, we decided
to stay here permanently", says Nelson. Little by little, the friends who
used to come for visits or who listened to their stories about the warm
clean waters and the white sand decided to buy houses in the same place.
"Today many friends are our neighbours. Even our doctor bought a home near
ours", Nelson says. The Portuguese who purchase houses in Ceará
have an average income of 1,500 euros per month. For the Baldaias, this
was about R$ 8,000 per month (3,000 euros), which is a good money in Ceará.
Over the past three years, the number of Portuguese living in the State
grew by 60%.
According to Embratur, 5.4% of tourists
who visit Brazil stay at their own places. Other 24% stay with friends
or relatives. The Norwegian couple Thomas Lindgard, 31, and Cathirne Rystad,
28, and their daughter Marianne, 15 months, came for the first time to
Brazil and stayed with a friend of Thomas' in the Pipa beach, Rio Grande
do Norte. "The beautiness of the region and the cordiality of the people
were a good surprise for us. We intend to return to Brazil other times",
says Cathrine.
The purchase of real estate by foreigners
has at least three benefitial effects for the Northeast. The first one
is the creation of new jobs. It is estimated that each new foreigner who
settles in theregion creates, at least, one new job. The second effect
is the increment of tourism; with a house in Brazil, the frequency of visits
increase. The third benefit is the change in the profile of tourists. "Foreigners
who come to stay in a resort of buy beach houses have a good purchasing
power and spend more", says Nelson Freire, Secretary of Tourism of Rio
Grande do Norte. This new group of tourists include families, just-married
and elderly.
.
 If
you plan to immigrate to Brazil you may wish to contact us for consultation
where we'd be able to provide with professional advice on your chances
and opportunities. Click
here to fill out the free application form or email us at: immigration@bionexus.biz |
|
| Uruguay
for Retiring, Investing, or Just Good Living by Lee Harrison - If you've
never considered Uruguay as a place to live, or even to visit you’re
going to be completely surprised by all it has to offer - The
country is diverse. Montevideo is a old-world European style city with
fine restaurants, colorful markets, sycamore lined streets and a cultural
scene second to none. Here you’ll encounter an honest, European culture
that’s representative of what you’ll see throughout the country. In Colonia,
you’ll find that the original Portuguese settlement has been restored,
and its residents have made it one of the finest examples of old colonial
architecture in South America. With it’s year ‘round tourist trade, Colonia
is a great place to invest in a colonial restoration or a rental property. |
LEARN
MORE - CLICK HERE
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