Tourist signposting in São Paulo is not enough

Around 12 million tourists, including foreigners and people from other parts of the country, come to São Paulo on business or attracted by the city’s vast supply of culture, leisure, art, architecture and gastronomy. In 2014, this figure shall reach the level of 15 million visitors, of which 1.35 million shall be coming for the World Cup in Brazil, according to a recent study conducted by São Paulo Turismo (SPTuris), a mixed company associated to São Paulo City Hall.

But, after all, how does the visitor, especially the foreign visitor, get around in the largest and most complex city of the country? The streets and tourist attractions in São Paulo are well signposted, but is there information for the tourist?

In the latest tourism plan for the city (Platum 2010-2014), SPTuris answers: “the signposting is not enough and there is a need for investment, both in signposting of the streets as also in maps, route maps and other guidance that could be distributed at strategic points such as airports, hotels, restaurants and the like”. Other serious problems include the traffic congestion and the poor condition of historic attractions.

Good Signposting
Even so, there are some people who praise the good signposting of the streets in São Paulo. These include architect José Marcelo, who hails from Rio Grande do Sul and who was visiting the São Paulo Pinacotheque last Sunday, having spent three days in the city. “There are road name signs on all the streets. São Paulo has a lot of street signs, more than other Brazilian cities I have visited and even more than Porto Alegre, where I live”. He said that he had the opportunity to use the taxi service and the subway, and also walk through the city, and found no difficulty at all. “I walked along Paulista Avenue and the Jardins District, and also the Old Centre, where I liked seeing the street sign on the famous corner of São João and Ipiranga Avenues”, he says.

Also at the Pinacotheque, Rio de Janeiro-based photographer Luís Abramo and camera operator Frederico Pena, hailing from Belo Horizonte in Minas Gerais, were waiting for a São Paulo-resident friend who was “lost in traffic for more than an hour”, they said ironically. Mr. Abramo, who likes driving, says that having a car in São Paulo is a complicated matter: “The signs are either a long way before or a long way after the road crossings and traffic lights”. Mr. Pena prefers to get around by taxi or on foot, and says he finds his way around satisfactorily with the use of Google, his IPhone, tourist guides and maps, to get wherever he wants to go.

For people who lack these resources, it could be difficult to find a Tourist Information Center (CIT), as these are very few and far between considering the sheer size of this mammoth of a town. Only recently was a tourist center opened on Paulista Avenue, in the downtown, and the City Hall is now announcing the implementation of similar units at the Municipal Market and also República Square, both in the downtown.

Tietê Bus Station
The reporters of the Portal 2014 also went to the Tietê Coach Station (North Zone), the largest of the city, where a young German tourist named Lisa, a fashion designer hailing from Essen, was with her friend Jussara, from Campinas, waiting to take a bus to Rio de Janeiro, after a brief visit to São Paulo. To get to know the city, she used the subway and also walked.

As soon as she landed in Brazil, however, she had the first problem: the hostel where she would stay, in the trendy neighborhood of Vila Madalena (West Zone) was full, and she had to do what she could, alone, to find somewhere else to stay. She asked people in the street (always in English), until she found another hostel in Praça da Árvore (South Zone). She said that São Paulo could have tourist information and support points, like there are in other countries. “Somewhere to leave your bags, where they can tell you where to go and how to get there, and so forth”. On the subway, Lisa felt comfortable: “It is just like what there is in other countries, with route maps and plenty of signs.”

Who was really in trouble was Colombian visitor Carlos Esteban Henao, from Medellín, who arrived at the airport and then took a bus to the Tietê Terminal. He is a civil engineer and came to Brazil to take part in a one-year exchange scheme at the State University of Campinas. The problem is that, when he got to the coach station, he could not find a friend who was going to meet him. He went to the Information Desk in the bus station, but no-one could understand what he was trying to say, in English or Spanish or even his rudimentary Portuguese.

“There is no-one to help me”, said Mr. Henao. The Portal 2014 team tried to ask the attendants if anyone spoke another language, but all they could say was for us to go to the Press Relations Department of the bus terminal. Fortunately, Mr. Henao managed to find his friend thanks to the help provided by our team.

The subway
Taking a bus in São Paulo is a challenge, even for the local residents. To get some information, the tip is to ask at the bus stops or to ask a passerby. For the tourist, without a shadow of doubt, the best public transport in São Paulo is the subway.

In the stations and also on the trains, part of the subway network already has bilingual signposting in Portuguese and English. According to Mário Fioratti, the Operations Director of the São Paulo Underground, “this is part of the renewal of visual communications on the Line 1 - Blue, where most of the stations already have information in English”. The subway is also a pioneer in the use of pictographic information, a universal language that speakers of all languages can understand.

The good news is that shortly the São Paulo subway shall also have sound messages. “These shall be spoken in other languages too, at all stations and also on the trains that have the resources to issue pre-recorded messages. We are in the process of translating the messages most commonly used, so that we may then start the recordings”, says Mr. Fioratti.

For the direct service provided to foreign tourists by employees, there is lack of training. However, he says that the company has already decided to train the employees of the Customer Service Centre in English and Spanish. Nowadays, to solve the most common doubts raised by tourists, the employee uses a small book with guidance in English, Spanish, French and Italian, available in the Operational Supervision Room at all stations, he explains. “We also wish to reinforce the services provided to the tourist public in other ways, such as dealing with diversity and also the understanding of different cultural codes and customs”, he adds.

To meet the demand from the tourists who shall come over for the World Cup, new informative materials shall be produced, as well as maps in several languages. And, in addition, to make it easier to access different parts of the city, the company counts on the gradual expansion of the subway network and the greater integration with other forms of transport such as buses and commuter trains.