The city of Florianópolis has been emerging as a strong GLS destination for a few summers. Proof of this are queues of gays to board at Navegantes airport.
In view of this success, Santur (responsible for promoting tourism in Santa Catarina) and Tam Viagens took a group of 50 journalists and tourism agents to the city – 70% were foreigners. The objective was to show the beaches and tourist attractions of Florianópolis. The event took place between March 26th and 29th.
There were trails on paradisiacal beaches, lunches and dinners in restaurants. We visited Bristrou Isadora Ducan, located in Lagoa da Conceição, and Café de la Musique, in Jurerê Internacional, where dances and folk theater from the region were presented by the group Boi de Mamão, managed by two "proudly gay" artists. Their words.
The Majestic hotel, which hosted the group, also offered a welcome dinner, entertained by a local samba school complete with drums, Mestre Salas and Porta Bandeira.
In the small fishing village of Santo Antonio de Lisboa, the group came across a beauty teaching how to farm oysters. Those present showed a lot of interest, despite most of them not speaking Portuguese. It was, without a doubt, one of the most memorable moments of that day.
On Saturday, important meetings took place to discuss the direction of GLS tourism. At the beginning of the day, the Brazilian Tourism Association GLS convention took place at the Softel hotel. On the way back to the Majestic hotel there was the GLS Tourism Fair. There, tourism departments from Bahia, São Paulo, Gramado, Santa Catarina, as well as IGLTA (International Gay & Lesbian Travel Association), Zoom Vacations (USA), BueGay (Argentina) and several others, were at stands receiving and informing about their services or locations.
At the end, there was a Forum in which IGLTA regional directors presented questions about the LGBT market. They also answered questions from those present, who went to Florianópolis with the aim of strengthening the gay market in Brazil and also learning from successful experiences, whether in Europe, South America or the United States.
