The number of foreign tourists that visited Brazil in 2003 was up 8.1 percent from the year before, according to stats provided by the country´s Tourism Company (EMBRATUR)

The Department of Researches and Surveys attached to EMBRATUR reported that some 4.9 million sunbathers traveled to Brazil in last year, compared to 3.8 million visitors that chose the South American nation in 2002. Revenues rose to $3.4 billion, up 8.5 percent compared to the previous year.

French hotel and services giant Accor SA reported a 37% decline in profits for the year Wednesday as economic gloom, war in Iraq and the weak dollar weighed heavily on tourism. The group behind international hotel chains Sofitel, Novotel, Ibis and Mercure, as well as U.S. brands Motel 6 and Red Roof Inns, said net profit fell 37.2% to 270 million euros ($330 million), or 1.36 euros ($1.66) per share, in 2003, from 430 million euros, or 2.18 euros per share, a year earlier.

Peru hopes to put big tourist numbers on the board this year and some experts are putting figures in the neighborhood of 12 to 15 percent, Ramiro Salas, the country’s Tourism vice minister, said in Berlin.

Tourism authorities in Central America augur the arrival of 5.6 million vacationers in the course of the ongoing year, up 9 percent from 2003 when the region welcomed 5 million visitors, then 4.2 percent more than the numbers posted in 2002, said Spanish entrepreneur Javier Vega, president of the Central American Tourism Advertisement Agency (CATA).

Mr. Vega’s remarks came within the framework of an ordinary meeting of the Central American Tourism Council (CCT) in which Guatemala replaced Belize as new nonpermanent president of the organization for the next six months.

The Cruise Line Industry Association (CLIA) logged a 9.52 percent increase in the number of passengers all around the world in 2003, with American tourists punching a 6.9 percent growth in that same period of time.

According to the latest issue of Travel Weekly magazine, cruises also netted a 102.3 percent spike in human cargo, up four percentage points from 2002. CLIA members also reported that a dozen new vessels are scheduled to take their maiden voyages in the course of 2004, compared to 15 ships that sailed for the first time last year and 13 that were launched in 2002.

The inflow of tourists to the Dominican Republic all through 2003 grew a whopping 19.5 percent, compared from the year before, to $3.1 billion, some $380 million more than in 2002, the nation’s Central Bank revealed.

The banking institution also reported that the number of travelers and the volume of revenues “set a couple of record highs for the local sector and now point to more positive outcomes yet to come in the course of 2004.”