Inovelab

The airline was established in 2000 and started operations on 15 January 2001. It is a subsidiary of Brazilian conglomerate Grupo Aurea, which has other transport interests including Brazil's largest long-distance bus company. Grupo Aurea in turn is owned by the Constantino family. Gol's unprecedented low fares revolutionized the domestic Brazilian air travel market. As of 2004, Gol had carried 11,600,000 passengers, and constituted 20% of the Brazilian air travel market. On 24 June 2004 Gol launched simultaneous initial public offerings on the New York and Sao Paulo stock exchanges. It is now owned by AeroPar Participacoes (77%), Venture (17.6%) and American International Group (5.4%) and employs 3,303 staff. The growth in Gol`s stock price made the Constantino family a member of the Forbes` billionaire list in 2005.

As the first discount airline in South America, Gol has modeled itself after the American discount flight giant Southwest and has rapidly made large profits.

Gol chief executive officer Constantino de Oliveira Junior, said: "We've made flying popular, we've extended the Gol effect to Brazil and South America by expanding our business, with innovation, efficiency, quality service and disciplined control of costs and rates."

"What made the difference was that Gol arrived on the scene with a new fleet. As a result, its maintenance costs were extremely low. In addition, it was operating on routes that were short and had a high density of traffic. It was selling tickets almost exclusively on the Internet, the way it is still doing today.” According to Oliveira, that approach means that Gol enjoys considerably lower sales costs per ticket.

Gol has managed to change some paradigms of the Brazilian aviation sector, which traditionally valued such concepts as sophistication, elegance and glamour when marketing air travel. The big concepts were broken by the simplicity, practicality and simplification of Gol’s operations.

Currently Gol has 41 flights between Brazil and neighboring Argentina. Most of its major destinations can be reached on direct flights from Miami, Dallas and Los Angeles.

* GOL Linhas Aereas Inteligentes SA Brazil's leading discount airline. The Company provides frequent service on routes between all of Brazil's major cities and to international destinations in Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay. As of December 31, 2005, it operated 42 single-class Boeing 737 aircraft, and offered 420 daily flights in Brazil and to its international destinations.

Ariaú Amazon Towers was inaugurated in 1987 and was the first hotel in the jungle. It is located along the river Ariaú, approximately 60km northwest of Manaus. From Manaus it takes about 2 hours to go by regional boats, by speedboat, 1 hour, and by helicopter 15min. It is entirely built on stilts at tree top level in the heart of the Amazon Rain Forest. The water of the river next to the hotel has high acidity and therefore is no mosquitoes in the surrounding area. Many famous people has visited the hotel through the years, like; former Chancellor of Germany Mr. Helmut Kohl, the Queen and King of Sweden, Mr. Bill Gates, former president of the USA Mr. Jimmy Carter, etc. Since the hotel was inaugurated it has grown a lot, today there are more than 300 guest rooms, beauty- and hair salon, and three places to land helicopters, - it has become as a small town in the jungle.

The hotel provides with several kinds of accommodations, standard & superior rooms, Royal- Presidential- & Imperial suites, and Tarzan's house. There are 310 individual apartments and suites, all with private baths, balconies, hammock, TV mini-bar, and a fan. You may add for room with air-conditioning, etc. There are as well telephone & Internet facilities, two swimming pools built at canopy level and restaurant and cafeteria facilities to serve up to 300 guests. Nearby is the Anavilhanas Archipelago, formed by 380 islands, which provides endless options for sightseeing. One auditorium with total infrastructure for 500 people. The Tarzan's house is located on the top of a nut tree (Castanheiro, one of the largest trees in the Amazon forest, 16m high). The Tarzan suite gives its guests a sensation of an adventure. It is complete with A/C, balcony, mini-bar, and private bath.

The Hotel uses local labor, generates employment and fastens the man to his community. Each direct employment generated by tourism represents another person with revenue to spend in their own community and indirect employment linked to services and other support for products such as lodging, food service, fuel, handicraft, equipment, film and courses.

The local community around the leisure complex acquired conscience that tourism increases the level of employment and quality of life, and started to preserve nature. The increase of local economic activity is the best form to preserve natural places such as the Amazon Forest in a short time.

Ariaú Amazon Towers
Manaus, Brazil
Telephone: + 55 (92) 234-7308
Site: www.ariautowers.com

The FT Sustainable Banking Awards program, held jointly with World Bank's IFC - International Finance Corporation, recognizes global banks that have actively integrated social and environmental objectives into their operations.

Brazil is fast establishing itself as a hub of innovations on sustainable financing in emerging markets. In December 2005, it launched the Bovespa Sustainability Index, the first of its kind in Latin America. The index includes local companies listed on the Sao Paulo Stock Exchange and will track not only their economic and financial performance, but also their corporate governance and environmental and social performance.

[1] Banco Real was founded in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais state, on 16 June, 1925 as Banco da Lavoura de Minas Gerais. In mid-1998, the strategic partnership between Banco Real and Banco ABN AMRO SA - the Brazilian subsidiary of ABN AMRO Bank - was announced. ABN AMRO Bank (ABN AMRO), which owns all of the shares of ABN AMRO Bank N.V., is an international banking group offering a range of banking products and financial services on a global basis through its network of 3,557 offices and branches in 58 countries and territories.

[2] Banco Itau Holding Financeira S.A. (Public, NYSE:ITU) is the 2nd major private bank in Brazil founded in Sao Paulo, on 1945. The Company has four principal operations: banking (including retail banking through its wholly owned subsidiary, Banco Itau S.A. (Itau), corporate banking through its wholly owned subsidiary, Banco Itau BBA S.A. (Itau BBA) and consumer credit to non-account hold customers through Itaucred), credit cards, asset management and insurance, private retirement plans and capitalization plans, a type of savings plan.

In the brazilian economy, services create up to three-quarters of the wealth and 71% of employment, and yet we know relatively little about managing innovation in this sector. The critical role of services, in the broadest sense, has long been recognized and includes businesses like restaurants, hotels, hair salons, banks and airlines but is still not well understood. Most research and management prescriptions have been based on the experience of manufacturing and high technology sectors. There is a clear need to distinguish which, if any, of what we know about managing innovation in manufacturing is applicable to services, what must be adapted, and what is distinct and different.

%GDP Brazil - Services Manufacturing Industry Agriculture (World Bank)

Thriving demand for services has allowed the world's 10th economy to maintain its global competitive edge, although some economists regard our economic wealth purely over agriculture, industry and manufacturing — the engine of 70's growth — in spite of knowledge intensive based services (where TICs have a representative role), turism, restaurants, hotels, health care, transportation, entertainment, financial services and other ones that could realy get the best our people, our food, our lifestile and our incredible landscape.

There are a lot of motivations to study Brazil services innovations, entrepreneurships like Ingresso.com, Itau Bank, Gol Airlines, Globo.com, Boticario Cosmetics, Oi telecom, Spoletto's food, Habib's, Casa&Video are among success stories of a good balance over demand and offering in a heterogeneous but democratic country.