São Paulo – The consumer protection foundation Procon-SP is getting ready to welcome Brazilian and foreign tourists at the World Cup 2014 in the state of São Paulo. A few days before the beginning of the matches, a website with a visitor’s guide about consumer rights, useful phone numbers and services in several areas, such as safety, passports, food, accommodation, ticket sales transportation and others will be launched.
The website will have Portuguese, English and Spanish versions and will include a space for complaints about irregularities in consumption relations. According to the executive director of Procon-SP, Paulo Góes, the foundation will be the intermediary to solve problems between consumers and companies. Procon-SP will have staffs on duty to answer to the demand.
According to Góes, meetings are already taking place with the sectors which are main players in the World Cup tourism, such as hospitality, restaurants and travel agencies. They will provide Procon-SP with the contacts of companies in their respective areas. According to the executive director, the goal is to structure fast solution channels for these conflicts.
“We are getting ready to answer both the Brazilian and the foreign tourist, if need be”, Góes told ANBA. The foundation will distribute pamphlets with information about the website in key places such as airports and bus stations. A QR Code will also be available for the tourist to download the website’s contents to smartphones.
The service is available in the state of São Paulo. In April, the Procon-SP will provide training to Procon units in other municipalities which will receive tourists because of the foreign teams they will host. The Algerian team is the only Arab team to compete in the World Cup. The team will be staying in Sorocaba, which is in São Paulo’s countryside.
The initiative to create specific services for the World Cup tourist came from Procon-SP, an organization which belongs to the government of São Paulo and is tied to the Secretariat for Justice and Citizenship. When launched, the address of the website will be available on the Procon-SP homepage.
Procon-SP
Site: http://www.procon.sp.gov.br/ (in Portuguese)
*Translated by Rodrigo Mendonça
