The Joys, and Lessons, of Traveling to Brazil

By MATTI ANTTILA/The New York Times

Photo: Lily Kesselman
Matti Anttila is president of a New York liquor company with a distillery in Brazil. He travels there often and has discovered there is a richness to the country that many tourists miss.

I’VE been flying since I was a child. I was only 8 years old when I had my first solo flight to Europe. I had to wear my passport around my neck, and I always got a lot of attention from the flight attendants. Many of them would put me in the business-class section, even though I belonged in economy.

I never really appreciated it then. Now I do. I’m a small-business owner, and flying is expensive. I try to stay loyal to one or two carriers so I can at least get upgraded out of coach. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t.

Occasionally, some cool things happen to me during a flight.

A few years ago, I struck up a conversation with a guy sitting next to me. He talked about his skydiving habit and kept me entertained during the entire flight. When we landed, my connecting flight was delayed, and he offered to let me stay at his home. I declined because there was a later flight I could take.

We kept in touch, and later that week I got a call from him inviting me to a party. It was at the Playboy Mansion.

Of course, I went. I was single, and it was a blast.

I’m married now. But I suppose I would still go. You could make a lot of business contacts, and I have a very understanding wife. But it’s doubtful I would ever have the opportunity to go again, so just how understanding my wife would be is rather moot.

I usually don’t talk to my seat mates a lot during flights. It’s the one time I get to catch up on reading or do some work that I just can’t get to during the week.

One thing that I always have to explain is my company name. Cachaça is a Brazilian liquor, made from fermented sugar cane. It’s one of the most popular liquors in Brazil, but people outside of the country don’t know a lot about it. People always have a lot of questions about Brazil, especially since Rio de Janeiro won the 2016 Olympics bid.

Our distillery is in Brazil, and when I started the company, I was there practically all the time. Now, I try to go at least once a quarter.

What I tell people is that Brazil is a huge country. And every state within it has a different feel. That’s why you have to give yourself enough time to try to connect with the locals, who can help you discover the specific culture of each place.

The biggest mistake I see is people going to Rio de Janeiro without a specific plan and then never leaving the tourist area around Copacabana. Brazil is a whole lot more than that.

A lot of people have a very poor perception of Brazil. Most Americans go there for business or Carnival and rarely get to experience some of the lesser-known areas of the country.

When Brazil is in the news, it’s rarely for anything good. There are issues, like the shanty towns around the bigger, metropolitan areas. But I figure there are places in New York I wouldn’t go after dark. The same is true in Brazil. Therefore, I’ve never had one minute of feeling less than safe. And I think that things will only improve the closer we get to the Olympics.

Actually, the worst thing that ever happened to me regarding Brazil was that the airline lost my bags. I was in Rio, so it wasn’t tough to find clothes. And better yet: I just passed the time drinking some cachaça until my bags eventually found me.

Q. and A. With Matti Anttila

Q. How often do you fly?

A. Practically every week, both domestic and international.

Q. What’s your least favorite airport?

A. Heathrow. It’s massive and constantly congested, and they have very strict rules regarding carry-on luggage.

Q. Of all the places you’ve been, what’s the best?

A. Santa Barbara. It’s beautiful, and it’s my home.

Q. What’s your secret airport vice?

A. Buying paperback spy novels. They are a great release on long flights.

By Matti Anttila, as told to Joan Raymond. E-mail: joan.raymond@nytimes.com.

4 Common Misconceptions About Brazil

By Connection Consulting

After providing consulting for numerous business to start up in Brazil, we have learned that there are a few subjects related to bureaucracy and perceptions about Brazil that catch foreigners by surprise especially when they are planning to set up or already are in the process to open their business in the country.

Based on our experience we decided to write this guide to clarify 4 of the most usual misconceptions that people have when bringing their business to Brazil:

Salaries are Very Low in Brazil

It is easy to think of Brazil as a country with cheap workforce so this may be the most common misconception of all people planning to set up in Brazil. Just to give you an idea of the evolution of the salaries, the minimum wage increased at an astonishing pace in the past years practically doubling if compared to the figures from 2002.

Right now the minimum wage is BRL 465. It is worth to note however that the gap between different categories is huge so you will rarely find any employee with a bachelor degree in engineering that earn less than BRL 3000. Salaries vary a lot from state to state, but for experts the salary may double or even triple.

Top that with high social costs and an extra salary per year (the 13th salary) and will you have a idea of the annual cost of an employee for the company.

Companies can be Opened on a Blink of an Eye

Unlike the process in the US or in most European countries where opening a company is quick and usually require filling out a form or two, the Brazilian company formation process is far more complicated and time-consuming. Different authorities, licenses and taxes are involved depending on the type of company you are planning to open and it can take from one to six months before your company is operating. 

The fact that there is foreigner presence in the company also makes the process slower and more expensive due to extra translations costs.

Rio de Janeiro is the Only City to be

Some people tend to be fooled by the status that Rio de Janeiro has as a vacation destination thinking that such status also applies for business. We are not trying to say Rio de Janeiro is not a good place to establish your business, but you should be aware that there are other places in the country with great potential and that may even offer incentives such as free plots of land for you to build your business or tax reductions. 

São Paulo is still considered the business capital of Brazil and alone corresponds to 15% of the country’s GNP. Also three quarters of the all business events in Brazil happen in São Paulo. Manaus is also an interesting place for electronics manufacturing business due to its free trade zone regulations.

Get your Brazilian Documents in Brazil

Foreigners sometimes get overwhelmed by the amount of documents that are necessary to live in Brazil and the most natural perception is that it will be easier to obtain all documents once they are in Brazilian soil. That is not always true. 

Some documents, for example the CPF, can also be obtained in the Brazilian Consulate so it worth to check with them if they can assist you. You are little likely to get information in English from the authorities in Brazil, so besides of having help in your own language, the Consulate is more used to handle request from foreigners.