Açoriana Tourism: Travel Agency in Santa Catarina

Interview with Joceli Cintra, Partner and Director of Açoriana Tourism and President of Santa Catarina’s Tourism Board

As a Partner and Director of Açoriana Tourism and President of the State Tourism Board, could you give us an overview of these two institutions?

Açoriana Tourism is a company that has been in the market in Santa Catarina for 25 years. We work with the entire range of products on the market; our differential is that we promote research trips to the destinations that we sell for our partners. Thus, we can guarantee our clients are getting constantly updated travel information, as we can say we know the tourist destinations that we offer. This corporate directive forces us to make investments but we get these back in returns such as quality service.

We understand that a modern travel agent cannot sell what he doesn´t know. What makes us a differentiated tour company is the concept of travel experiences for those marketing the products.

The State Tourism Board is a representative body of the tourism trade in Santa Catarina, represented within which are the private sector (tourism entrepreneurs), public authorities and civil society organizations (the third sector), we are the governing body for tourism management. Our mission is to maintain and advance the consolidation of Santa Catarina´s tourism policy and align industry demands with current government policy.

What have been the major goals achieved by the State Tourism Board?

Within Santa Catarina´s tourism policy, the simple fact that we exist – and recently we had a change in state government – that we are functioning and aligning our work with the current government´s proposal is a great accomplishment, as my first management undertaking for the organization, boasting the consolidation of public policy on existing tourism as its main achievement.

At the beginning of 2012 we delivered a document (Tourism Manifesto) to the government, which contains all the industry´s demands for this year because we are endeavouring to take advantage of the hosting of major events in 2013 (World Meeting of Young Catholics in Rio), 2014 (World Cup) and 2015 (Rio´s Anniversary) and 2016 (Olympics). Tourism in Santa Catarina offers a great deal to complement the mosaic of diversity of tourism in Brazil, which will be highlighted over the next four years. We must constantly seek our market share.

What can Açoriana Tourism offer that is different?

Currently in tourism, Açoriana Tourism is a company that offers diverse products for scheduled tours, because we have an operator to sell to the wholesale trade, we have the appropriate structure for retail sales, we attend the needs of Business Tourism and Events, and from 2012 onwards, we have a financial services company offering solutions related to investments and trading foreign currencies. What we offer that´s different is complete solutions for our customers travelling around the five continents.

In general, how do you see tourism in Santa Catarina in the coming years? What niche, sector or area could grow?

Tourism in general, lacks training and improvements in the sector´s management; we have to steer towards excellence in tourism management from Florianopolis and Santa Catarina in general.

I see huge potential for investment in the Nautical Tourism sector, the state has a 508 km coastline and we are strategically located between Brazil and Latin America´s major urban centres. In my travels I have seen that our state tourism has real potential for Nautical Tourism and together there is room for investments in hotel chain networks and gastronomy. I´ve seen that there is a lack of investment from major global hotels like the Hilton, Sheraton and other networks, as this “globalizes” “high-end” tourism, meaning those who spend more, but also demand greater investment.

As an example, I always say, I live on an island, where there´s an embankment in the South Bay, between the city centre and the international airport, which is abandoned. It was a buried area, it was an ecological shock, the marine eco-system that existed there was literally buried, and nothing was done in order to occupy the site. When you have a loss of this ecological dimension I believe you ought to have an economic and social gain.

There, in the same way as Amir Klink, I see real potential to create the Florianópolis Marina, a sector where wet marinas can be installed and where there´s enough space to build large hotels. And right next door is a community that can benefit from the generation of new jobs next door to their homes.

In short, a nautical sector that could be economically ethical, and through nautical tourism, generate wealth, opportunities and ensure that tourism performs its social role, which is social inclusion through employment.

What is the State´s main potential and what are its major differentiating features?

The State of Santa Catarina is small in relation to the territory of Brazil, but we have a social-economic-natural mosaic that, in terms of tourism, is a big plus and we are out in front in the national market.

We have done some good work in the following segments:

Sun & Beach Tourism (for 4 months); the season is and will be our cash cow, but we depend on the municipalities and the state government to significantly improve our water supply and to implement sewage systems as a matter of urgency.

Business Tourism & Events (year-round in the State´s main cities); we have consolidated ourselves over the last decade, especially in Florianopolis, as the 3rd destination for international events thanks to a great job done by the tourist trade. Joinville, Blumenau, Itajai, Chapecó, Jaraguá do Sul are cities that are also consolidating in this segment.

Cultural Tourism; especially religious tourism which has proven itself to be well structured.

Adventure Tourism; tourist facilities related to the adventure tourism sector are being improved in the Santa Catarina mountain range, the Alto Vale Region.

Ecotourism; Santa Catarina has a good part of its Atlantic Forest preserved. We are attempting to consolidate the flow of tourism for ornithology and to get the structure of our state parks to the accepted standards in order to have the same correlation in the tourist market the way as has been done in the Iguaçu National Park and Yosemite Park in California.

Nautical Tourism; as I said previously, we have 508 km of beaches, we’re a few hours from Porto Alegre, Curitiba, São Paulo and Buenos Aires, the largest markets in Latin American. We have the capacity to become Latin America´s principal nautical hub.

Rural Tourism; within the mosaic I mentioned there are still the rural areas and the rural way of life as another tourist attraction in this state. Rural tourism was pioneered in Brazil, in Lages, and today acts as a reference in the organization of rural tourism (by MTur) due to initiatives of the third sector and the private sector. The state has now established the program SC Ruralwhich will bring a lot of innovation to the field and consequently increase the competitiveness of this segment as well.

God helped us with natural diversity (we have beaches, mountains, plateaus, valleys and lakes), history helped us because it made us a “melting pot”, the State´s cultural diversity enables tourism to develop in a differential way, now our fight is reaching the necessary standards in the management of all of this. We must innovate, innovating in management we will accelerate innovation and innovation is the key to competitiveness of tourism in Santa Catarina.

What are the challenges being faced by the State in terms of tourism?

As I said before it’s to innovate. There are four ways to innovate in this industry. We have innovated our processes, innovated our products, innovated in finding niche but we have not innovated in the main form of innovation, which is management. Companies only truly innovate when they change (innovate) their way of thinking, of planning, or rather a change in how we manage this is the only way to keep Santa Catarina’s tourism as one of the top 5 destinations in Brazil. We have everything, but we do not have management excellence, we need innovative methods for monitoring. Changing the management of tourism we will ensure our competitiveness.

What opportunities for international investors can you see in this sector?

There are great opportunities for international investors in tourism in Santa Catarina. The State already has a traditional industry which has become globalized. Tourism is endeavouring but we are still not globalized to our full potential.

There are great opportunities to set up hotel chains under international flags, to implement new event centres (which could be public private partnerships) and also, due to huge lack of new modern marinas, for international know-how in this area to leverage this sector.