About Carla Labanca
Carla Labanca
Since she was a child, she has been enchanted by stories and cultures based in different parts of the world and due to her great love for tourism, she later discovered her true vocation.
Carla Labanca Pettersen has been accredited by Embratur (the Brazilian Tourist Board) for the last 16 years and has been working as a tour guide on a regional/national level as well as covering South America. She is a language graduate who speaks 4 languages namely: English, French, Spanish and Italian.
She is always extremely communicative, friendly and possesses a youthful spirit. Also, she loves working with people, has a passion for life, is reinvigorated and is determined to show her clients interesting places as well as giving them unique and exclusive experiences.
Due to her love of Sao Paulo, she decided to dedicate herself to understanding all there is to know about this incredible city. To this end, she works in tourism looking after clients who wish to have a more personalized and extraordinary VIP experience taking them to unique historical, architectural and urban landmarks which only Sao Paulo has to offer.
She has a degree in Business Administration from the FAAP University in Sao Paulo and a post graduate certificate in Conference Interpreting from the Catholic University of Sao Paulo. She started her career by working in the financial sector for many years. When she realized that her career had come to a halt, she then decided to relocate to Europe in the 1990s and it was there that she embarked on a journey in search of personal renewal and knowledge of the world which has never stopped.
Having obtained her Italian citizenship through her grandparents, she went on to live in Rome to find herself again and to traverse new areas in search of wisdom and new professional experiences. After having lived there for one year studying Italian, she then went to Paris to study French at an academic level at the famous Sorbonne University where she was able to develop herself intellectually.
She worked in the Acacias Saint Germain Hotel and in the luxury, boutique called “For You” on the famous Rua de Rivoli street, which is well-known for having the most elegant brands in the world. With her amicable personality, she would endear herself to her clients and she subsequently became a highly professional person.
Nevertheless, she had a burning desire to explore new places and cultures and so she went to live in Portland in the county of Dorset in England and then she enrolled in Cornwall College where she majored in the English Language.
She worked as a receptionist on the cruise ship M/S Leeward that is owned by the Norwegian Cruise Line company, which allowed her to improve, even further, her cultural and linguistic knowledge.
Possessing a burning desire to acquire as much experience as possible, she decided to spend a period of time in Spain until she moved to Nerja, Andalusia, which is near to Malaga and it was there that she kicked off her career as a tour guide. Her work started with her giving guided tours to British people in Gibraltar, Marbella, Sevilla, Córdoba and Granada in 1999.
After this incredible journey around the world, she decided that it was time to return to Brazil and to dedicate herself to tourism. She completed a course in Guided Tourism and Hotel Studies at Senac (the Brazilian National Training Institution) which is a course approved by the Brazilian Tourism Board (EMBRATUR) and which falls under the remit of the Ministry of Tourism in Brazil.
Carla Labanca was one of the first tour guides to specialize in VIP tours exclusively dedicating herself to high-rolling clients with itineraries embracing the whole of Sao Paulo encompassing: contemporary art, architecture, fashion and design.
As she has a passion for Brazilian flora, she took it upon herself to study Landscape Gardening at Senac. She has an immense amount of experience in this area having worked as a landscaper in the city of Atibaia for a long time.
She still continues to use her landscaping knowledge to enrich the experiences of her clients on their trips around the city, as the city has various open-air places to visit such as parks as well as wild life and it allows people to come into direct contact with nature.
Her last academic experience took place when she completed a post graduate course at the Catholic University of Sao Paulo in Interpreting in English. She has also worked as a conference interpreter and has accompanied people requiring the skills of an interpreter. She always gives her all in everything that she does particularly in relation to international events carried out in the city of Sao Paulo.
As her biggest love is the city of Sao Paulo, her greatest desire is to show to the highest number of people possible, that her city is much more than what is portrayed by the media. Sao Paulo is an historical city brimming with culture and beautiful landscapes that will take your breath away. The work that she does, for her, means placing value on the best that is in the city as well as the best in other cities in Brazil but doing this in her own inimitable and unique way whilst providing her clients with a trip that is both special and unforgettable being incredibly exclusive and luxurious.