RIO DE JANEIRO, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Brazil's tourism sector is growing, albeit at a slow pace, said a study published on Friday, the World Tourism Day, by the National Confederation of Trade, Services and Tourism (CNC).

According to the study's indicator ICV-Tur, the earnings of Brazil's tourism sector reached about 20.4 billion reals (4.9 billion U.S. dollars) in July, up 9 percent from June and 1.5 percent from the same period in 2018.

The southeastern region, which holds Brazil's two largest cities Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, was responsible for 61 percent of the sector's earnings in July. Among the activities of the sector, restaurants and passenger transportation were responsible for about 80 percent of the month's earnings.

"The economy is growing. At a slow pace, but it grows," Antonio Everton, an economist at the CNC, told the state news agency Agencia Brasil.

In the first seven months of 2019, the tourism sector's earnings amounted to 136.7 billion reals (32.8 billion dollars), up 1.1 percent from the same period last year and the largest amount registered for this period in four years.

The sector generated 25,049 new jobs in July. According to the CNC, the sector employs almost 3 million people in Brazil, which represents 7.6 percent of the total people that hold formal jobs in the country.