The Brazilian Town That Solved Overtourism Before It Started
While Venice and Barcelona scramble to contain mass tourism, a town of 23,000 in Brazil’s interior has been managing it since the 1990s. Bonito may be the world’s most successful sustainable tourism experiment — and almost nobody outside Latin America knows it exists.
This is part of The Rio Times’ daily coverage of Latin American news and Latin American financial news.
The signature innovation is deceptively simple: a document called the single voucher, introduced in 1995. Every visitor needs a timed, name-specific permit for each attraction. Biologists calculated carrying capacities — the Sucuri River allows eight people per group every 20 minutes. When slots fill, no one else gets in.
The results speak for themselves. The Sucuri has 30-meter underwater visibility — among the clearest rivers on Earth. Visitors float 1,800 meters downstream in small groups, forbidden from touching the riverbed. The tour costs about $60.
In 2022, Bonito became the first ecotourism destination certified carbon-neutral by a UN-recognized body. One local reserve went further — earning “climate-positive” status, absorbing more carbon than it emits.
Over 40 countries now study Bonito’s model. The town draws 300,000 visitors a year and depends on tourism for over half its economy — yet has preserved the environment that makes it worth visiting.
Skeptics note that strict limits can price out lower-income travelers and that 300,000 visitors is manageable partly because Bonito remains remote. But in an era when overtourism is degrading the world’s most celebrated sites, a town that solved the problem three decades ago deserves far more attention.
For more context, read Brazil’s Morning Call and the Latin American Pulse.
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