Over the past two decades, the Inter-American Development Bank has gained considerable experience promoting sustainable tourism activities in Brazil, particularly in the less developed Northeast. This has entailed a valuable learning process with respect to the environmental impacts and management challenges associated with tourism development, which has led to a significant evolution in the Bank’s approach over time. As a result, much of what the Bank is currently doing in connection with its tourism development projects in Brazil can be characterized as good practice. This is especially the case both in terms of its approach to strategic planning at the state and local levels and in terms of the ways in which environmental considerations and components have been “mainstreamed” into project design and implementation. Based on a review of pertinent documents and interviews with Bank staff and selected borrowers, as well as field visits to two of the four active Prodetur projects (in the states of Ceara and Pernambuco), this paper summarizes and illustrates these features of the Bank’s present approach to sustainable tourism in Brazil. It also identifies several areas where additional improvements would be useful.