Brazil is the fifth biggest country in the world, both by population and by land mass. If you take Alaska away from the US, Brazil becomes the fourth biggest by land mass. In it, it has diversity like no place on earth. It is a melting pot of peoples from the natives of the rain forest, the often forgotten natives of the mountainous and plains regions, the imported African roots remnant from the slave trade, the Portuguese conquistadors, the various Europeans of the south to the Japanese of Sao Paulo. Even more diverse is the flora and fauna. With the Amazon rainforest’s countless species of insects and plants, Brazil is rich in resources and prime for eco-tourism.

Unfortunately, Brazil sees very little tourism. With just over five million tourists in 1996, and half of those from neighboring Argentina, Brazil is very far behind other destinations. Spain for example, had 37.4 million tourists in 1996 and is only a fraction of Brazil’s population.

There are many factors that work to keep these numbers low, the biggest being fear. The Amazon, abundant with life, is world renown for snakes, spiders and fish, all of which eat man. In addition to this, Brazil has problems with crime. It is a dangerous place to be Brazilian and more dangerous to be a foreigner.

Last year there was a fairly large outbreak of dengue fever in the area of Rio de Janeiro. I was studying Portuguese but wanted to get some facts straight so I sought an English version of the news. I was quite surprised to find nothing on any of the major English sites that I usually refer to for news. Instead, I found an article about a sixteen year old boy who had just admitted to killing, and having no remorse, six or seven people.

As the English media eventually got around to covering the 50,000 people suffering from the “bone breaking” desease, I asked myself why the associated press had picked up a cold blooded killer instead. At first I thought, and I have not yet ruled this out, that it was an attempt to preserve tourism. Rio is one of the busiest tourist destinations in South America and surely relies on the influx to bolster their economy. But then I thought about Brazil’s violent image which surely keeps tourists away and I began to think that preservation of tourism is not a concern of the media.

As I see it, Brazil is ripe for a thriving tourism industry but chooses not to pick the fruit. With all that they have to offer, beaches, the Amazon, history, culture, gastronomy, they could surely attract more tourists than they do but, annually they little more than Peru. I am perplexed, when I walk the streets in Brazil, I encounter people on every corner, excited to talk to a foreigner. I find people who speak English for pleasure, out of interest and for their jobs. I see the most beautiful sights I’ve seen in all of my travels yet there is no concern to promote that and bring foreign money to the country. Maybe it is the general laid back attitude of Brazilian culture or I may just be missing something big.