Economy Minister Pedro Siza Vieira today considered that the United Kingdom's decision to leave Portugal off the list of safe destinations to travel has no scientific basis, even with the criteria that the country has chosen to follow.
The Minister of State, Economy and Digital Transition was participating in a conference organized jointly by news agencies Lusa and Spanish EFE, with the theme “Tourism in times of covid-19”, when he considered that the decision of the United Kingdom, a of the main tourist markets for Portugal, was taken «without scientific basis, even adopting the criterion that it decided to follow».
"These are completely different situations, what happens in Lisbon and the rest of the territory, which has very low levels of incidence," he added.
The government official also stressed that the level of availability of the national health system was never in stress, thus managing to respond to the pandemic.
The United Kingdom is the main outbound market for tourists to Portugal, having accounted for 19,2% of overnight stays from foreigners in 2019 and has been recording successive growth since 2013, only interrupted in 2018, according to INE data.
The preferred destinations for British guests were the Algarve (63,4% of overnight stays in the market), Madeira (18,5%) and the Lisbon Metropolitan Area (10,8%).
On July 3rd, the UK announced which “international travel corridors” it would resume from July 10th, excluding Portugal from that list.
Portuguese diplomacy has already reacted, considering the decision of the United Kingdom to exclude Portugal from the "international travel corridors" as "absurd", "wrong" and causing "great disappointment", still bringing serious economic consequences and mutual trust.
At today's conference, Pedro Siza Vieira also said that he is convinced that Portugal, «due to its ability to present itself to the world as a safe destination», with a great diversity of landscapes and cultural environments, will return consumer preferences to the center.
«During this time, which mediates from here until we recover the flow of travel that we all expect, it is very important to have the capacity to support the thousands of companies, many of them small and medium-sized companies, which will have a very low turnover during this year , which need to be preserved as much as possible in their knowledge, because that is what makes a tourist destination successful», he reiterated.
Pedro Siza Vieira considered it necessary to invest in factors for future competitiveness, such as sustainability, digitization and the qualification of human resources.
"We will continue to invest in what are the country's new destinations, nature tourism […], converting buildings into parks, […] supporting the conversion of accommodation units to a system of more circular economy, greater energy efficiency." guaranteed the minister.
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