(VOVworld) – 1.17 million tourists visited Rio de Janeiro during the two-week 2016 Olympics, 410,000 of whom came from abroad. Rio’s mayor, Eduardo Paes, told reporters on Tuesday that the figure was beyond the expectation of the local authorities.

Rio’s mayor Eduardo Paes at the Olympics' closing ceremony (Photo: EPA/VNA)

Each tourist spent an average of 128 USD per day. 500,000 liters of beer were sold at the seaside road leading to the Rio de Janeiro port. The Brazilian Tourism Institute estimated that the city may earn 1.8 billion USD from just 350,000 tourists.

Also at that press conference, Brazil’s Chief of Staff  Minister Eliseu Padilha said the 2016 Olympics had made Brazil better known around the world. The games were viewed by an estimated five billion people. Over 187 million tweets were sent about the Games. 130 million images on Instagram and 277 million posts on Facebook featured the 2016 Rio Olympics.