Foreigner tourists visiting Fortaleza
Fortaleza
Travel information
What foreigners say about Fortaleza
The Tourism Board of Ceará published a report with statistics about tourism in Fortaleza in 2004; the full report (big file - 2.4 MB, in Portuguese only, PDF format) is here.
The table at page 7 of the report shows that, in 2004, a grand total of 249,810 foreigners visited Fortaleza.
The table below shows the number of tourists, by nationality.
| Country | 1996 | 2003 | 2004 | 2007 (*) |
| Germany | 1887 | 9910 | 15488 | 19500 |
| Argentina | 2758 | 14768 | 15238 | 27375 |
| Austria | 677 | 972 | 2498 | 3375 |
| Belgium | 97 | 4858 | 5995 | 7125 |
| Canada | 532 | 2720 | 3747 | 6750 |
| Chile | 242 | 2526 | 2498 | 3375 |
| Spain | 702 | 11465 | 8494 | 16125 |
| USA | 3096 | 6218 | 9493 | 46125 |
| Italy | 4741 | 19432 | 36472 | 42000 |
| France | 1766 | 14768 | 15238 | 24000 |
| Finland | 0 | 6412 | 5746 | 13125 |
| Holland | 581 | 18849 | 24481 | 26625 |
| England | 605 | 1943 | 5995 | 10125 |
| Portugal | 1887 | 58684 | 68198 | 78750 |
| Switzerland | 1790 | 7190 | 13989 | 13500 |
| Uruguay | 411 | 1166 | 2748 | 3750 |
| Others | 2419 | 12436 | 13490 | 33750 |
| TOTAL | 40209 | 194318 | 249810 | 375000 |
Some comments about the table:
1) In 2004, there was an increase of more than 28% in the total number of foreigner visitors, compared to the year of 2003 (when 194,318 foreigners visited the city) and an amazing increase of more than 500% when compared to the year of 1996.
2) In 2004, there were about six times more Brazilians than foreigners visiting Fortaleza (1,534,544 Brazilians and 249,810 foreigners). However, the number of foreigners grows at a higher rate than the number of Brazilians (in 1996, Brazilians outnumbered foreigners by a factor of 18).
3) There is a massive predominance of Europeans. In 2004, Portugal was the country which sent most visitors, with a total of 68,198 travellers, or 27.3% of the total, followed by Italians, Dutch and Germans. American tourists accounted for less than 4% of total in 2004, but the Tourist Authority expects to see 46125 Americans in 2007, the biggest growth among all nationalities.
Another official survey shows that the main factor to induce visitors do come to Fortaleza is word of mouth, which means that the city lacks a marketing campaign in countries which send visitors (particularly the United States). The survey shows also that 96% of foreign visitors have the intention to return to Fortaleza, and indeed more than 60% had come more than once to the city. See survey about the opinion of visitors about Fortaleza.