Rio Olympic district to become tourism hub

Rio de Janeiro wants to turn Barra de Tijuca, the area where most of the 2016 Olympic Games facilities are located, into a new tourist hot spot.

The project was conceived by city officials, the Brazilian Hotel Industry Association (ABIH) and the Rio Convention & Visitors Bureau to take advantage of the international attention Barra de Tijuca will receive during the Summer Olympics.

The idea is to make permanent use of the 15,000 hotel rooms – from luxury hotel chains, including Hilton, Hyatt and Trump – that will be used for the event.

Tour operators are trying to promote the district as a tourism destination that, in addition to natural attractions and tourism infrastructure, has Latin America’s most advanced sports facilities, including the world’s first Olympic golf course.

The neighbourhood of 300,000 inhabitants – twice the number from 10 years ago – offers a great variety of leisure options, restaurants, cultural attractions, shopping, beaches, lakes and mangrove swamps stretching several kilometres, all within the precincts of two of the largest urban forest reserves in the world.

Barra, uninhabited 50 years ago, also boasts Latin America’s biggest convention center, exciting night life, discos and 18 big shopping malls, one of which brings together the biggest global luxury brands in one place.

What was earlier an isolated region with just two access roads, is now completely connected to the rest of the city, thanks to the Olympic Games, with no less than three exclusive road networks for buses, including an expressway to Rio’s international airport, as well as a Metro line that is under construction.

“Conditions are ripe in Barra to become a new tourist hot spot within the larger destination of Rio city,” Rio ABIH and Rio Convention & Visitors Bureau president Alfredo Lopes told EFE.

An effort is being made to promote the area’s attractions worldwide to ensure “a balanced and uninterrupted flow of (tourists) for a healthy occupancy rate”, and to launch a “guidebook, map and logo” to reinforce its own identity, Lopes said.

Another strategy is to convert the area into an important center for large-scale corporate events.

In 2015, Barra was chosen as the venue for more than 50 conferences and fairs, attracting more than 800,000 participants and $US1 million ($A1.4 million) in earnings.

“Barra can compete with Sao Paulo as the biggest convention centre in Brazil,” Raul Melo, a partner in the tour agency that launched specific tours for Barra de Tijuca, told EFE.

Ecobalsas, another tour operator betting on the area’s potential, offers boat rides on Marapendi Lake that allow visitors to explore the region’s mangroves and rich wildlife, including alligators and birds.

“We started operating six months ago and are already offering around 40 flights a week,” a spokesperson for another company said.

The company is using the new facilities in Barra to offer helicopter rides over attractions, including the Olympic complex.

One of the main attractions is the Brazilian National Soccer Team Museum, which displays the nearly 200 trophies won by the national squad.

The exhibits include five World Cup trophies, uniforms and souvenirs of Brazilian soccer idols.

Another big draw is the Casa do Pontal Museum, which has about 8000 works by 200 craft artists from 24 Brazilian states.

A few kilometres away, visitors can tour renowned Brazilian landscape architect Roberto Burle Marx’s famous gardens, constituting one of the world’s most important collections of tropical and subtropical plants, with 3500 different species.

Other places of interest include the 166-hectare Prainha Municipal Natural Park, an aquatic park with 42 attractions, a breeding farm offering horse rides, the biggest palm tree plantation in Brazil, two ice skating rinks, a go-kart track and the City of Arts, the new seat of the national Symphony Orchestra.

Tourists will also be able to visit the Maxi Cana, a distillery with monthly production of 32,000 litres of cachaca, a Brazilian rum used in caipirinhas, and other drinks, which are also exported to Britain, Australia and China.

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