RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — The overstuffed bags filling
Fernando Mello’s luggage cart wobbled precariously as the gym owner made
his way home one morning through Rio’s international airport.
Navigating the terminal, Mello was part of a horde of other Brazilian
travelers returning with loot found in the strip malls and discount
outlets of southern Florida.
Mello’s girlfriend’s freshly
purchased Michael Kors handbag in gold lame sat atop four bulging
suitcases like a shining crown — a testament to the newfound consumer
power of Brazilian travelers, who now spend more per capita than any
other visitors to the U.S.
In fact, Brazilians are spending so
much that flights with Brazil’s top airline TAM originating in the U.S.
have had to carry more fuel to accommodate the dramatically overweight
baggage.
"We left with nothing, just a piece of hand luggage,"
said the 30-year-old Mello. "We go to the U.S. once a year, stay in
great hotels, have a fantastic holiday and shop till we drop and it’s
still cheaper than shopping in Brazil. It’s a no-brainer."
According
to the latest statistics, Brazilians spent $5.9 billion in the U.S. in
2010 in a tsunami of cash that’s shifting American immigration practices
and boosting economies in hard-hit parts of the U.S. that remain in the
doldrums.
President Barack Obama recently ordered the State
Department to speed up the visa application process for tourists coming
from Brazil, China and other nations with newly flush consumers.
After
suffering decades of hyperinflation, Brazil has ridden high commodity
prices along with some of the world’s biggest offshore oil discoveries
to expand its economy, lift millions out of poverty and multiply the
ranks of the country’s deep-pocketed elite.
The buying binge also
shows off the muscle of the country’s mushrooming middle class, which
has expanded by 40 million people since 2003. That’s been bolstered by
the growing use of credit cards, bank loans and other forms of consumer
credit.
But it’s not just the easy money that has transformed Brazilians into world-class
shoppers.
Stiff
tariffs on all imports push the prices of foreign-made goods into the
stratosphere at home. And though domestic products are not known for
their quality, their prices have risen in recent years as demand is
higher than production, making it cheaper to buy nearly everything in
the U.S., from clothes to toys and kitchen gear and even soaps and
shampoos.
As a result, Brazilians spend more in the U.S. than
visitors from any other nation — around $5,400 per person in 2010, with
experts estimating the number growing last year. Japanese tourists
followed, spending $4,300 each.
Unniverson Liborio, a 60-year-old
chef based in New York, disembarked at Rio’s airport with bags stuffed
with hot buys for his grandchildren — baby onesies, a pink plastic
Barbie mansion and 700 disposable diapers.
"I got this all for
maybe $300, total," said the Brazilian-born Liborio, who has lived in
the U.S. for decades. "Here I couldn’t have bought even half the diapers
for the same price, and forget about everything else."
Price discrepancies are particularly pronounced when it comes to luxury goods.
With
the number of millionaire households here forecast to more than triple
by 2020, Brazil is widely regarded as the new El Dorado of luxury, and
top-tier labels such as Italy’s Prada and Bottega Veneta are scrambling
to get a foothold.
Because of the staggering import taxes,
however, the high-end handbags, shoes, garments and electronics can end
up retailing for several times more here than in Europe or the U.S. The
iPhone 4S with 16 gigabytes of memory costs $1,515 without a contract on
Apple’s Brazilian website. The same phone retails without a contract
for $649 on Apple’s U.S. website.
And so it is that hordes of
Brazilians swarm Miami’s Apple Store while the Girls from Ipanema snap
up designer purses on New York’s Fifth Avenue.
Brazilian shoppers
are easy to spot — they’re the ones at malls with huge suitcases on
rollers, spending from store to store until their baggage won’t hold any
more.
Aristoteles Guimaraes, a 36-year-old from Sao Paulo, was
busy recently at Miami’s Sawgrass Mill mall while on a special four-day
shopping mission with a budget of $4,000.
"I came exclusively to
buy things for my baby," said Guimaraes, whose wife is seven months
pregnant and remained back home. "I came to buy everything. Things here
cost on average one-third of what they would in Brazil."
His big find: an Italian baby stroller that would have run him $1,300 in Sao Paulo
but was $350 in the U.S.
Guimaraes
had visited before, with his first trip in 2005, and said he was
treated better this time at his hotel and at the shops.
It should come as no surprise: Still struggling merchants have rejoiced at the
business.
"They
spend a lot," said Giovana Ennen, a saleswoman at a luggage store in
Miami. "I’ve sold 16 suitcases to a family of six people."
Ennen
added that she sees some Brazilian clients every six weeks or so and
that they leave each time with bags full of merchandise.
Brazilians’
heavy spending has in part helped pave the way for a geopolitical shift
in relations between the Latin American giant and the U.S.
During
a recent visit to Disney World, a perennial favorite among Brazilians,
Obama unveiled measures aimed at making it faster and easier to obtain
tourist visas for citizens of developing countries such as China and
Brazil with "rapidly growing economies, large populations and emerging
middle classes."
"More and more of their people can now afford to visit America who couldn’t come
before," Obama said.
He
said the State Department has been instructed to process 40 percent
more visa applications for Brazilian and Chinese nationals this year.
That
expected increase comes on top of the already skyrocketing numbers of
U.S. visas granted to Brazilians in recent years, which more than
doubled over the past decade to 546,866 in 2010. Official figures for
2011 have not yet been released, but the U.S. Embassy in Brasilia
estimates at least 1 million visas were granted last year.
The
U.S. consulate in Sao Paulo last year received more visa applications
than any other in the world — around 3,000 a day, according to the U.S.
Embassy.
Business at the three other U.S. consulates in Brazil has
been so brisk that Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy
Sherman has said staff there are working double shifts and plans are
being examined to send reinforcements.
Liborio, the New York-based
chef, said he’s amazed how the tables have turned since the days people
flocked to Brazil for cheap clothing and other buys.
"I used to
do my shopping here in Brazil, where you could buy four pairs of jeans
for the price of one in the U.S.," he said amid a group of sated
shoppers at the airport. "Now I come here with tons of luggage and leave
with nothing."
___
Associated Press writer Jenny Barchfield
reported this story in Rio de Janeiro and Gisela Salomon reported in
Miami. AP writers Marco Sibaja in Brasilia and Stan Lehman in Sao Paulo
contributed to this report.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.