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Meeting in Metropolis:
Rio Shines as Incentive Destination
by Flo Conner
If meeting destinations were celebrities, Rio de Janeiro would be the daring diva, winning big and losing big, fascinating us even as she shocks us.
Earlier this century, Rio enticed the rich and influential from around the world. Wild parties were the norm, cultural events were lavish and the register at the Copacabana Hotel read like an Academy Awards invitation list. Politicians, celebrities and royalty all paid homage to Rio. Ernest Hemingway and Orson Wells and a host of other luminaries soaked up the Rio sun while sipping caipirinhas, a blend of sugarcane liquor and limes. Rio mainstreamed carnival, the samba and its jazzier cousin, the bossa nova, and the "The Girl from Ipanema."
Then the bossa nova gave way to disco. Carmen Miranda look-alikes were relegated to cheap drag shows. The Girl from Ipanema lost her looks.
But in the early '90s things began to turn around. The Rio Mar project upgraded areas in downtown and the beaches, adding parking and lighting and cleaning up buildings and monuments. The $10 million upgrades to Pargue do Flamengo (Flamingo Park), the world's largest city park, began to attract both visitors and residents.
The city added 4,000 bilingual police dedicated to protecting and assisting visitors at the major attractions and the airport. More than 120,000 lights, at a cost of $70 million, were installed throughout the city and along the beaches.
The images of slums, beggars, street crime and dirty beaches are outdated, says Frank DeClara, director of sales and marketing for Los Angeles-based Riotur. "Negative impressions hold for a long time, and it takes a lot of dollars to dislodge them."
Part of the problem has been lack of "spin" money to pay for advertising and public relations efforts to change Rio's image, DeClara says. "We have had no presence. The only advertising we've had has been through private businesses promoting travel to Rio."
Attitudes about the city do seem to be changing. A survey conducted in 1992 by Embratur, Brazil's official tourist board, revealed that security was the greatest concern of foreign tourists visiting Rio. By 1997, security concerns had dropped to fifth place. Bookings in 1998 rose almost 10 percent over 1997. More than 95 percent of foreign tourists surveyed last year indicated they would recommend a trip to Rio. In the 1998 annual "World Outlook" survey conducted by EIBTM, international travel agents ranked Brazil as one of the top 12 hot destinations.
Members of the Florida Law Group who visited Rio last spring discovered a "gracious and sophisticated city," says Ronnie Crider, president of the association. "We'd heard a lot about children being brutalized by the police and homeless beggars harassing visitors, but we saw none of that. As the week went on and we felt more comfortable, we started branching out and going off on our own. A bunch of us went to a soccer match and felt perfectly safe."
With the devaluation of the Brazil real (pronounced ray-OW) earlier this year, planners are seeing savings in food, beverage and entertainment. Since the beginning of the year, the dollar has gained 40 percent against the real.
Reservations can be made without worrying about fluctuating currency rates, says Randy Snapp, president of Destination Marketing Services, a Manhattan Beach, Calif., firm that has handled incentive travel to Brazil for 30 years. "Not only are the hotels guaranteeing prices several years out, but so is Varig, the Brazilian national airline, which is heavily promoting its incentive program with the Sheraton."
"I looked at the packages and the prices, and decided it was time to choose Rio for an incentive," says Jean McKinney, CMP, owner of Global Events, Inc., Taylor Lake Village, Texas. "With the savings, we'll get to enhance the entertainment. We can stage a carnival and take an overnight trip to see Iguazu Falls. Something special becomes spectacular."
Rio's reasonable prices allow meeting planners to add extras they couldn't afford elsewhere, say Byron Sideratos, vice president of Destination Marketing and Services Brazil in Rio. "We floored one group with a huge fireworks display after a day on a schooner. It blew them away when we ended the show with fireworks in the shape of their logo. It was a group used to luxury, but this was over the top even for them."
Another elaborate entertainment Sideratos offers is the "planned serendipity" excursion. He takes a group through the Tijuca rainforest, about half an hour's drive from the city. "At the lunch break a truck happens to drive by. It just happens to be full of musicians. I invite them to stay, and of course, they break out the instruments and stage and impromptu concert," Sideratos says. "Then I encourage people to enjoy the quietness of the rainforest and explore a little. They will happen upon a condomble, the African-Brazillian version of a voodoo ceremony, complete with costumed performers and lots of drums. Finding a condomble in the middle of the forest has a lot more impact than seeing it on a hotel stage," he says. "Hearing those drums in the forest unnerves even me --- and I'm the one who arranged it!"
Riocentro is Latin America's largest convention facility. It can accommodate up to 12,000 people in over a million square feet of meeting space. It has restaurants, shops and medical services.
Its only drawback is its location away from the string of beaches (including Ipanema, Copacabana and Leblon) known as Zona Sul (Sun Zone), where most of the city's 21,000 hotel rooms are located and where convention groups prefer to stay. The hotels tower above the beaches, providing guests with fabulous views, security and convenient access to restaurants, bars and nightclubs.
The 483-room Inter-Continental Rio has 15 function rooms, accommodating 2,000 for a reception or 1,000 for a dinner. It has three tennis courts, three pools, four restaurants and five bars. The city's other resort hotel, the 544-room Sheraton, has its own beach. Its convention facilities accommodate groups up to 1,000 and 600 in an open-air amphitheater.
"The ballroom lobby has wide windows that take in views of the ocean and the city,' says Sintia Gomes, director of sales for the Sheraton Rio. "Watching the sun set on the ocean as the lights come up at Copacabana and Ipanema during a reception is a very dramatic way to start the evening."
A 230-room beachfront Marriott will open next year with nearly 4,000 square feet of meeting space. Other meeting hotels include the 220-room Caesar Park Ipanema and the 37-story Le Meridien Copacabana, which has 396 rooms and offers extensive business and VIP services.
Most international flights are routed to Rio via Sao Paulo. North American-based carriers with service to Brazil include American, Delta and United. European carriers are Air France, British Airways, Iberia, TAP, Alitalia, Lufthansa and Swiss Air. Varig has domestic connections to Salvador, the Amazon and Iguazu Falls as well as Rio.
With this summer's opening of a second terminal, the Rio International Airport's capacity rose from 7 million to 19 million passengers annually. The $238 million terminal, with its upgraded passenger check-in and customs facilities and police station, will begin accepting international passengers by the end of the year. The Zona Sul is about a 45-minute drive from the airport.
As in any large city, moving groups from one place to another takes planning, says Sideratos, especially during rush hours when long stretches of road become one way either into or out of downtown. "Getting a group from the Sheraton to Ipanema may take 10 minutes or an hour, depending on the direction of the road," he says. "But there are enough activities to choose from that a planner can easily avoid the delays."
Flo Conner is a freelance travel writer whose travel writing has appeared in Meeting Professional, the Boston Globe, AAA Going Places, Successful Meetings, W Magazine, For the Bride, Streetmail and other consumer travel and business travel trade magazines.