Brand USA, the destination marketing organisation for the United States, has officially opened its Brazil office.

The office launch event held today in São Paulo was attended by US Ambassador Liliana Ayalde, Brand USA’s senior vice president for global partnerships Alfredo Gonzalez, and Brand USA’s in-market representatives.

Press and travel industry leaders also attended and enjoyed traditional American food and music, which demonstrated the incredible experiences Brazilians can experience in the United States.

Brand USA is the public-private partnership responsible for promoting international travel to the United States, designed to fuel the United States’ economy and spur job growth.

Its formation marked the launch of the United States’ first nationally-coordinated international tourism marketing effort.

During the event, Ambassador Ayalde emphasised the role of tourism in strengthening bilateral relations between the two countries.

“Tourism is not only an important part of our commercial relationship, but also an integral part of our growing cultural and educational relationship,” she explained.

Alfredo Gonzalez showed great confidence in the work of Brand USA in Brazil since the country had the largest increase in the number of visitors in the United States among the eight key countries in which Brand USA is fully deployed through all three consumer advertising, consumer marketing, and travel trade channels.

“Brazilians contribute significantly to the increase in numbers of US tourism.

“Beyond just tourism, the whole US economy benefits from this interest.

“So we are very happy to start our work here and hope that this relationship will grow even more,” explained Gonzalez.

The figures for Brazil, collected in a recent Oxford Economics study on the return on investment in marketing conducted by Brand USA, gave even more strength to the work of Brand USA in the country.

From October 2012 through September 2013, Brand USA’s marketing campaigns helped to increase the US market share of outbound Brazilian travellers by 3.1 per cent against competing destinations.

Brazil showed the largest increase out of the organisation’s eight key markets and played an important role in an overall incremental increase of 1.1 million international visitors to the United States.