More people go through Malaga in a week than through the whole of North East Brazil in three months...that puts these numbers into perspective! It's a joke, the numbers are insignificant.
Erm... only just spotted this little gem as I came to update the June results for the Northeast... Was probably posted before I took GW off ignore and replaced him with Dotty.
Just to put GW's comments "into perspective";
* Málaga airport has welcomed an average of 203.424 passengers per week this year.
* the whole of North East Brazil welcomed 5.173.555 passengers in the first three months of this year.
According to Mr Einstein, 203 thousand > 5.2 million - I guess I missed that day in maths class.
Or perhaps the end message "it's a joke, the numbers are insignificant" should be interpreted as "I'm only kidding, please don't examine my maths".
To look at it the other way, for an airport to be able to welcome over 5 million passengers a week, we could assume that they have the capacity of welcoming 5 million * 52 weeks per year = 260 million passengers a year. The worlds busiest airport in 2007 was estimated to be Atlanta, with just under 90 million a year. aka not even the busiest airport in the world could do what GW is proposing little old Malaga airport did "just to put it in perspective". One can easily see why Raimundo calls him one of the "most honest and prolific contributors to the forums". Glad you didn't say "accurate" that would be embarassing.
Anyway, if we can be allowed to move on from the "dehype", here are the official statistics for June Year to date results, published in todays Tribuna do Norte newspaper in Natal:
"Fernando Fernandes admits that many people in the state of Rio Grande do Norte failed with regards to what could have been achieved with tourism in Natal and are looking at what they can do to turn it around."
However:
Domestic arrivals increased by 13% while international has decreased by almost 20%
Natal is second in the number of sales by CVC, one of the largest Brazilian tour operators, with the first being Porto Seguro in Bahia.
For Rio Grande do Norte (Natal)
Hotel occupancy in 2005 and 2006 for January to April was 64%
Hotel occupancy in 2007 for January to April was 58%
Hotel occupancy in 2008 for January to April was 61%