National tourism is very important and should be valued, defended the Secretary of State for Tourism Nuno Fazenda today, calling on businessmen in the sector to reflect on the drop in Portuguese tourists registered in the Algarve this year.
“With regard to national tourism, in fact we have some signs of a drop in overnight stays by [Portuguese] residents in the Algarve, which does not mean that the Portuguese are traveling less. They may be traveling to other regions of the country and even abroad”, he told Agência Lusa.
However, he also recognized that this decline coincided with an increase of almost 40% in the average revenue per room in the Algarve, that is, an increase in accommodation prices.
“Now, this invites a joint reflection by institutions, businessmen, everyone, because domestic tourism is very important”, he stressed, defending that “Portugal has to continue to care for and value its domestic tourism”.
Nuno Fazenda was speaking in London, on the sidelines of the FTWeekend Festival, where Portugal was highlighted today as sponsor of the organization.
The Festival FTWeekend in London is an annual debate event organized by the Financial Times newspaper that brings together writers, politicians and artists and which attracted a few thousand people.
The varied program included sessions on fashion, ceramics, investing, real estate, health, technology, food or literature in tents set up outdoors in Hampstead Heath's nature park.
Among the participants in the festival were the Portuguese writer José Luís Peixoto, the 'chefs' Henrique Sá Pessoa and José Avillez, and the executive director and founder of the travel agency Tempo-Vip, Danilo Cerqueira.
Partnership with the newspaper Financial Times this event allows “to position Portugal in very important segments of literary tourism, wine tourism, gastronomy and wines”, explained the Secretary of State. This “takes us to territories where there is enormous potential in Portugal and which we want to enhance touristically”, he added.
The United Kingdom is the main outbound market for tourists to Portugal, having in July represented a share of 18,9%, 4,7 points more than in July 2019, according to data from the National Institute of Statistics (INE) released in the Thursday.
The Algarve continues to be the preferred Portuguese destination for 50% of the British who visit Portugal, but the Secretary of State stressed that the number of overnight stays of the British “is growing very significantly in other regions, namely in the Alentejo and in the North, and it is also growing at other times of the year”.
“What we want from a strategic point of view is to continue to grow, but to grow well, with sustainability and authenticity and throughout the territory, pushing for the less developed regions, but without ceasing to consolidate the main destinations Algarve, Lisbon, Porto and Madeira ”, he explained.
Fazenda recognized that “in a certain period and in certain areas, there is a certain concentration” of tourists in Portugal, reinforcing the importance of distributing them throughout the rest of the country.
However, he rejected comparisons with Barcelona, Paris or Amsterdam in terms of excess tourism.
“Lisbon and Porto are tourist destinations that we have to continue to preserve, sustainable and authentic, and that are not comparable with other destinations in the world in terms of 'overtourism'”, ie excessive tourism, he argued.
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