About Us
Discover Paraná also manages the portal for Curitiba, Ilha do Mel & Paranaguá and Superagüi & Guaraquecaba . We have decided to offer, in addition to Curitiba, the wonderful and little known coast of Paraná to make its access easier for visitors. As English is not widely spoken on the coast, we are dedicated to being the link between you - traveler - and the local inns, lodges and tour options.
We are located in Curitiba, but we are quite familiar with the areas we work with and can offer advice about the best available options for your holidays.
We have a multilingual staff, so you can write to us in English, German, Spanish, French or Portuguese!
Who we are
Bibiana is Brazilian and lived for almost eight years in Germany, though she often desired to return to Brazil. Her wish came true in early 2007 when she returned to her hometown, Curitiba, to open a business with her husband, Ulrich.
Ulrich was born in Frankfurt (Germany) and has been working in events since a teenager and began working in tourism after meeting Bibiana. He fell in love with the region of Paraná and is always looking for hidden spots to offer our clients.
Ana Lais joined us in 2008 to develop the whl.travel portals and her help was fundamental for the final results and the great success of our portals. She recently completed her studies in Tourism and graduated from Universidade Federal do Paraná. Ana Lais has made an internship in USA and took a semester in Germany.
Guilherme is our newest team member. He joined us in May 2009 to update and to insert new content in our portals and also to develop new products. Guilherme studies Tourism at Universidade Federal do Paraná and spent a year living in the USA (St. Helena, CA).
You can read more about us at the Curitiba Portal.
How we work and what we do for our region
- We strive to offer quality services. We desire visitors to experience the best in our region.
- We prefer to work with locally owned hotels, inns and small chains.
- We recommend our travelers visit restaurants that serve local dishes.
- We leave enough time in the tours so that local sites and stores can be visited and local aspects of the towns can be shown.
- We do not take more than 12 or 15 people on nature tours (trekking, hiking, etc.).
- We choose responsible tour guides, willing to show our travellers the best sights and not merely take them on a shopping tour. We only work with licensed guides and mountain guides.
- We book boat rides from fishermen and inns to motivate such people to invest in their boats and safety equipment.
- In partnership with a private nature reserve, we are beginning to implement "carbon free" tour options, where we will be investing in trees in tropical areas to compensate for the CO2 generated on our tours. At the end of the year, we will calculate how much CO2 we generated in the office and will compensate for these emissions as well.
- And last, but not least, we pay reasonable rates and salaries, making local tourism an interesting job option and motivating people to improve themselves.
We are very glad you know more about us and are looking forward to welcoming you here!
