Travel Information

Travel information

Conference hotel reservation, air tickets, other hotels and airport transfer

For reservation at the Unique Hotel (discount rates):

Unique Hotel
Fone: +55 (11) 3055-4710
E-mail: reservas@hotelunique.com
Code for discount rates: SCL 2016
“Travellers' Choice 2015: Top 25 Luxury Hotels in Brazil - TripAdvisor 2015”; “Conde Nast Johansens Award for Excellence Winners 2015: Condé Nast Johansens Best Dining Experience 2015” - “Food Safety Standard ISO - 22000:2005”

For air tickets and reservation at other hotels:

Ms. Rosa Maria Chueri
GWA Turismo

Phone: +55 11 2196-9300

Email: rosa@gwaturismo.com.br

For sightseeing and airport transfers:

Ms. Flavia Siqueira

GWA Turismo

Phone: +55 11 2196-9300

Email: concierge@gwaturismo.com.br

About Brazil

Some facts:

• Portuguese explorer Pedro Alvares Cabral set sail with his fleet on March 9, 1500, looking to follow Vasco da Gama’s route to India to secure direct trade relations for spices. Instead, they discovered Brazil on April 22, 1500 and claimed it for Portugal.

• The word Brazil comes from brazilwood, a tree commonly found along the Brazilian coast. In Portuguese, brazilwood is called pau-brasil (brasil means red like an ember in Portuguese and brazilwood produces a deep red dye) As brazilwood produces a deep red dye prized by the European cloth industry, massive amounts of brazilwood were harvested and shipped to Europe. The official name of the land, as per the Portuguese records, was the Terra da Santa Cruz (Land of the Holy Cross), but European sailors and merchants commonly called it Terra do Brasil (Land of Brazil) and the name Brasil eclipsed its official name. Pedro Álvares Cabral, the Portuguese navigator and explorer who claimed the land for Portugal, erected a large wooden cross, and named the land, Ilha de Vera Cruz (Island of the True Cross), as he mistakenly assumed that it was an island.

• Brasília, the country’s capital, took just 41 months to build, from 1956 to 1960 (Rio had been the capital for the previous 197 years). Brasília looks like an aeroplane from above. Oscar Niemeyer, the chief architect of Brasília’s public buildings, has designed more than 500 structures, most of which can be found in Brazil. The distinctive Cathedral of Brasília is one of his most famous. It features 16 90-ton columns and a 66-foot bell tower, entrance is via an underground tunnel, and inside are three angels suspended by steel cables.

• The Amazon River is the world’s largest by volume of water discharged. Around 209,00 cubic metres per second flow into the Atlantic Ocean - more than the next seven largest rivers combined and enough to fill Lake Baikal - the world’s deepest lake - in less than four years. During the wet season the river is up to 30 miles wide.

• The statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro weighs 635 tonnes, is 38 metres high including its pedestal and was named one of the New Seven Wonders of the World in 2007.

• Brazil has 19 UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Among the best known is the Iguassu Falls National Park, home to one of the world’s largest and most impressive waterfalls at 1.7 miles wide and with a total of 275 drops. It is also occupied by several rare and endangered species, among them the giant otter and the giant anteater.

Imigration: Brazil is characterised by centuries of immigration from all parts of the world: the systematic settlement of European invaders, in particular the Portuguese, but also Spaniards, the Dutch, the English and the French, began more than three hundred years ago. The time of the so-called “big migration” to Brazil began in the second half of the 19th century. The first of three phases of mass immigration (1880 to 1909) lasted until the early years of the 20th century. The immigrants in this phase originated primarily from Europe. The strongest increase was firstly among the Italians with 1,188,883 immigrants. However, immigrants also came from Portugal (519,629), Spain (307,591), Germany (49,833), the Middle East (31,061) and, in smaller numbers, from various other countries such as Ukraine, Poland, Russia and Korea. In a second wave of immigration between 1910 and 1929 more than one and a half million migrants entered the country to be employed, once again, in agriculture. The immigrants again originated primarily from Portugal, Italy, Spain, Russia and Germany, many of them looking for a fresh start after the First World War. However, emigration to Brazil has also increased from Syria and Lebanon since the beginning of the 20th century. The third wave of immigration (1930 – 1969) turned out smaller than those in the preceding decades. The largest group of new immigrants comprising 160,735 persons originated from Japan. For the newly emerged industrial sector, migrants were recruited from Syria and Lebanon in particular. Nowadays, some 1.5 million-2.5 million Brazilians are of Japanese descent. Many immigrants brought with them seedlings of cherry trees and cherry blossoms can be viewed outside homes in Sao Paulo, and in public parks in Curitiba.

Official name: Federative Republic of Brazil.

Capital: Brasília, located in the Federal District, in the Midwestern region and officially inaugurated in 1960.

Official language: Portuguese.

National Flag: The national flag of Brazil was created in 1889 by Raimundo Teixeira Mendes and Miguel Lemos, with design by Décio Vilares. Inspired by the Empire flag designed by the French painter Jean Baptiste Debret, Brazil’s national flag displays the blue circle and the motto Order and Progress replacing the imperial crown.

Area: 8,515,767 square km. Brazil is the world's fifth largest country in terms of land area.

Number of bordering countries: Population: 200 million. Brazil is the fifth most populous country in the world.

Biodiversity: Brazil houses at least 103,870 species of animals and between 43,000 and 49,000 species of plants – in addition to microorganisms, algae and species not yet studied. About 20 percent of the planet's biodiversity is native to Brazil.

Border countries: Argentina 1,263 km, Bolivia 3,403 km, Colombia 1,790 km, French Guiana 649 km, Guyana 1,308 km, Paraguay 1,371 km, Peru 2,659 km, Suriname 515 km, Uruguay 1,050 km, Venezuela 2,137 km.

Executive: Head of State and Government President Dilma Rousseff and Vice President is Michel Temer.

Legislature: The National Congress consists of the Federal Senate (81 members elected by majority vote for an 8-year term) and the Chamber of Deputies (513 members elected by proportional vote for a 4-year term).

Judiciary: The following are bodies of the Judiciary: Supreme Court (Constitutional Court); Superior Court of Justice; Federal Regional Courts and Federal Judges; Labor Courts and Judges; Electoral Courts and Judges; Military Courts and Judges; and Courts and Judges of the States and of the Federal District and Territories.

Administrative division: 26 states and the Federal District: Acre, Alagoas, Amapá, Amazonas, Bahia, Ceará, Distrito Federal, Espírito Santo, Goiás, Maranhão, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Minas Gerais, Pará, Paraíba, Paraná, Pernambuco, Piauí, Rio de Janeiro, Rio Grande do Norte, Rio Grande do Sul, Rondônia, Roraima, Santa Catarina, São Paulo, Sergipe and Tocantins.