Two weeks ago I was having a short and comfortable weekend at the beach, on the north coast of São Paulo, in a city called Ubatuba. This region is known for its many small calm areas, with many beach houses under dense forest.

I was with my girlfriend and we wanted to explore different areas. While driving we entered a residential neighbourhood located on a hillside that gave access to 4 or 5 different, almost private, beaches. This regions are usually close to beach houses and have small resident associations that manage each seaside. Some do better than others. And while driving along the hillside, looking for a calm place to stay by the sea I found an interesting sign, informing visitors that they needed to use a special “red badge” to stop their cars at that specific beach.

What a smart way to keep unwanted visitors away from the beach without forbidding laws or more segregation methods. Probably the local residents association wanted to keep the beach calm and almost exclusive to the landlords of that small neighbour and “prohibiting” visitors was not an option since the beach is public. So, consciously or not, they came up with a clever incentive to not stay at that specific beach by demanding visitors reaching that region by car to use a special parking permit that you would need to buy in order to park the car anywhere near that beach. Not having the permit could get you a fine.

The only detail was that the sign didn’t explain where or how to get the permit.

People respond to incentives, and this was a clever incentive not to stop at that beach. To stop there we would need to search for a place to buy the permit, but it was much easier just to keep driving and find another beach to stay. I imagine that many visitors think the same and don’t stop there to avoid getting a fine and because it’s simpler to find another place. Is this beach worth the hassle of looking for and buying the permit? Most people think that probably not as there weren’t many cars there… Even on a sunny weekend with all the other places crowded.