Brazil is an emerging gay tourism hotspot, but the government doesn’t want to know

In the 1970s and 1980s, advertising campaigns from Brazil’s Embratur tourism board often used images of women in bikinis lounging on the beach to attract foreigners to visit the country. Such sexually charged advertisements have long been discontinued, but the tourism sector has found it difficult to shake off the stereotypical image of suntanned women in skimpy bathing suits, beach football, samba music, and caipirinhas in its efforts to promote the country abroad.

The strategy since then has been to advertise Brazil’s natural beauty to boost tourism — the idea being to attract more value-added, as well as avoiding the obvious damage of sexual tourism. Thus, visitors would bring their families, stay for longer periods, and be more inclined to travel around the country and contribute to the production chain in a more general manner.

One particularly high-growth niche, LGBTQ+ tourism, also shows significant potential in Brazil but has been largely overlooked by authorities. A 2019 study from small business support association Sebrae highlighted Brazil as the Latin American country with the largest capacity for growth in the sector.

Indeed, just last month, a stretch of Ipanema beach in Rio de Janeiro was voted the second-best gay beach in...