The PT candidate for the presidency, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, highlighted today (20) the importance of preserving the country’s cultural and natural attractions. According to him, Brazil is “a country that has beautiful things to see, but which are abandoned”. The candidate participated in a meeting with representatives of the tourism sector in a hotel in São Paulo.
For Lula, it would be possible to have as an attraction the diversity of indigenous peoples who live in the national territory. However, before that, the candidate believes that more attention needs to be paid to these communities. “It was important for you to take people to see an indigenous tribe, but those people have to eat. They need to look good to show that they are treated well. It’s not you abandoning them to misery and thinking that it’s a tourist attraction”.
Another factor that, according to the candidate, has compromised the country’s natural beauty is the lack of adequate control in the occupation of coastal areas. “We have beaches here on the north coast [de São Paulo] in which the condominiums took over the beach. You have to ask permission to enter the water. In [Balneário] Camboriu [SC], they built the buildings, thinking it was modern, that shade the sea. If you want to sunbathe, you have to go behind the building”, he exemplified.
Deforestation and mining in the Amazon have also, according to Lula, hampered the expansion of tourism in the region. “No tourist will come here if our image is the deforestation we are seeing. I’ve already bathed on the beaches of Rio Tapajós. That beach is blue as indigo, showing that beach with brown water because of mercury is not going to bring tourists. So, this fight against deforestation, against fires, illegal mining, against the occupation of the Amazon. by whoever it is, it is a commitment of all of us”.
Lula also believes that it is necessary to face social problems and make an effort to improve the country’s image to the rest of the world as a way of attracting more foreign visitors. “A bad mood does not attract tourism. Hunger does not attract tourism. Poverty does not attract tourism. Violence, much less. And it all [isso] we have here in Brazil, even in excess”, he said. “Attracting tourists means selling the idea of a good thing”.
For the candidate, tourism has a strong potential for job creation. “We’re going to have to take into account that tourism is a very large and fast source of job creation,” he said.
The solutions to boost this branch of the economy must, in Lula’s opinion, be thought of together with society, not imposed by governments. “If the Tourism Board is not working, we will make the board work again. Because it is not the President of the Republic or the minister who has to do the job, our role is to extract from society what is extraordinary about it, which is creativity, so that we can do the best we can”.
