The University of Algarve hosted the Sustainable Gastronomic Tourism Forum, an initiative that brought together 22 participants from the Algarve's public and private sectors.
This was an opportunity for the region's living forces to discuss "strategies for the future of gastronomic tourism in the region and debate possible consensus on the definition of Sustainable Gastronomic Tourism (TGS)", in light of Medfest, a European program that brings together eight Mediterranean countries in around the common territory of the Mediterranean Diet.
It began by defining the concept of sustainable gastronomic tourism experience, «based on the use of the territory's resources, on the production and consumption of local products; in the knowledge and practices of food use that value the intergenerational action of safeguarding and promoting the culture of the region».
“A gastronomic experience of sustainable tourism must awaken the five senses. The involvement of the experience itself must be integrated and multidimensional, an active immersion of the tourist himself, from a social, economic and environmentally sustainable point of view», summarized Artur Gregório, president of Associação In Loco and coordinator of the Medfest project in Portugal.
But the main question that was in the air was “What model of Sustainable Gastronomic Tourism do we want for Portugal in 2030?”.
At the forum, strategies to achieve this goal and the possibility of deepening cooperation between the public and private sectors were discussed.
«The idea is to attract more aware tourists to Portugal and the Algarve and a more aware public for conscious and sustainable tourism. For this, it was concluded that it is necessary to review the tourist capacity of the Algarve, reduce and control mass tourism, provide certification for companies that provide services in the area, generate greater involvement and awareness of communities and local actors, offer greater diversification in offers tourism, taking into account resources depending on the time of year, create support networks for small producers for sale and sale, and preserve and conserve the local landscape», concluded the Forum organizers.
The initiative that took place at UAlg was «another step in the intervention program of Medfest, a three-year project (2017-2019), included in the Interreg-Med cooperation program, which unites eight Mediterranean countries in the enhancement of Gastronomic Tourism Sustainable and which will culminate, on September 5, with an International Conference on Sustainable Gastronomic Tourism, which will take place at Pousada de Tavira».
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