Photo: Turismo de Portugal
We talked with the President of Turismo de Portugal about the crucial aspects that shape and drive the country’s tourism industry.
As an expert in the sector, how do you see the performance of tourism in Portugal over the last three years in terms of supply, differentiation and management of tourist flows?
In recent years, the strategic approach to tourism has been fundamental to the successful trajectory that we see today. The tourist offer is increasingly enriched and diversified, with a special focus on promoting the authenticity and unique experience that Portugal offers its visitors.
The sector is actively working to manage the sustainable growth of tourism, supported by the critical importance of preserving heritage — both tangible and intangible —, ensuring that tourism is not only sustainable, but also induces positive transformation of territories and communities. Differentiation and 360º sustainability in tourism have been key areas in the sector in recent years.
From this perspective, Turismo de Portugal is committed to implementing policies and measures that promote environmentally responsible tourism practices and balance the interests of tourists, residents, and tour operators. The institution has contributed significant investments aimed at developing various tourism segments, diversifying the offer, investing in new markets, and creating year-round tourism throughout the territory.
Tourism has thus evolved in an integral and continuous way, with digitalisation asserting itself and with the aim of promoting innovation throughout the value chain, improving tourism's efficiency, performance and competitiveness.
As someone with extensive experience in this area, how do you see Turismo de Portugal's strategy and mission for projecting the ‘Portugal’ destination around the world, creating wealth for the country, while at the same time asserting itself as the sustainability factor for its assets and communities?
The positive results come fundamentally from the implementation of the Tourism Strategy 2027 (ET27), which seeks to align the different points of view of the players in the sector and the different tourism segments, promoting joint work that is already bearing fruit. A fundamental axis for Turismo de Portugal's actions, this strategic reference takes a global approach to the sector, emphasising the capacity of tourism to create sustainable wealth for the country and also pointing the way towards a more responsible tourism that promotes a balance between economic development, heritage preservation and the well-being of local communities.
Within this framework, Turismo de Portugal has been developing initiatives that promote the valorisation of Portugal's tourism assets, such as military tourism, which plays a crucial role in preserving our history and promoting national identity.
At the same time, it has invested in practices and policies that promote the environmental, social and economic sustainability of the sector in a holistic way, ensuring that tourism benefits not only visitors, but also the communities and environment in which it operates. Destination Portugal will consolidate its top position among international destinations through multidisciplinary work that combines the aspects of promotion, preservation and responsibility, with the aim of guaranteeing quality tourism that lasts and benefits everyone involved.
Military tourism has been integrated into the strategic framework for tourism in Portugal, with the 2027 Tourism Strategy. What ambitions does Turismo de Portugal have for this segment?
The ET27 identifies the implementation of a national strategy for Military Tourism as one of the projects designed to promote our history and our cultural and architectural heritage. Among Portugal's five differentiating assets listed by ET27, the most relevant for Military Tourism is ‘History, culture and identity’, which includes our more than 800 years of history and the material World Heritage recognised by UNESCO, which is directly linked to military history.
It is within this framework that Turismo de Portugal has been supporting the development of projects associated with military history and cultural heritage, particularly on the themes of the Napoleonic Itineraries, the Knights Templar, Battle Fortresses and Border Fortresses. The lines of funding that have been made available by the Institute, which have allowed investment in improving the structuring of the offer, is an indicator of our ambition to ensure that tourism contributes to the valorisation of heritage and its enjoyment, not only by the respective communities, but also by all those who visit the territories.
A future Agenda for Tourism will certainly continue to highlight the country's strategic tourism assets, which include tangible and intangible cultural heritage, in its various themes, because they are the identity of the territories.
RHLT has been working to create a product that combines the heritage of the Lines of Torres Vedras - a National Monument of great value to the history of Portugal and Europe - with themed routes and interpretation centres, storytelling, immersive experiences that highlight the human side of the conflict, period cuisine, wines, anchor events, and the natural resources it has to offer. What advice can you give us for building a consistent product structure?
In fact, RHLT has done an excellent and exemplary job in structuring and boosting this distinctive tourism product. That's why it must continue along this path of boosting the qualified tourist offer, networking and cross-selling with other products that are part of the identity of the territories covered by the Route.
I would highlight the areas where it is important to continue working, in conjunction with the Regional Tourism Entities involved and also with the collaboration of Turismo de Portugal: training of technicians and companies, stimulating networking and promoting physical and communication accessibility for people with specific needs; development of partnerships and supra-municipal itineraries within the Napoleonic theme; attraction of the surrounding business fabric, enabling the creation of structured tourism products (including entertainment, accommodation and catering), aimed at national and international commercialisation and promotion. These are therefore good practices that should be maintained and replicated in the structuring of other military tourism projects.
Under the slogan ‘Change your destiny where we changed Napoleon's’, RHLT has had the invademag.pt portal online since September 2023, which includes podcasts, a national events diary, issues of INVADE magazine, documentaries and promotional videos, among other things. How do you see the role of innovation and digitalisation in tourism as a contribution to sustainability?
Innovation and digitalisation play a fundamental role in tourism, not least in terms of improving the tourist experience. It is therefore important to promote digital transformation and the incorporation of new technologies for the interpretation and enjoyment of cultural and natural heritage (e.g. Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, immersive rooms, interactive maps, ...), as innovative ways of communicating and interacting with heritage. In fact, this technological dimension makes it possible to attract new audiences, so the mediation tools must be attractive, based on robust knowledge and using media that are accessible to all.
Technology helps to democratise access to and interpretation of heritage. It can also be used to monitor and manage resources, in order to better organise flows and the carrying capacity of these resources, as well as to better understand and characterise audiences and adapt content to their needs and expectations. Providing organised, accessible, up-to-date information in languages on digital platforms is also a very important way of helping and simplifying the tourist's ‘journey’ when organising their trip.
Providing access to content on digital media (reducing the need to use paper media), diversifying communication channels and, through these channels, better understanding demand, are all dimensions of innovation that RHTL is also implementing through its recent invademag.pt portal project. This is the way forward.
Recently, RHLT took part in a project with Portuguese and Spanish partners to create visitor routes about the French invasions/Peninsular War. As tourism is a highly competitive sector, how do you see these networked partnerships for joint promotion, resource management and the opportunity for lesser-known destinations to benefit from the popularity and attractions of more established destinations?
RHLT's involvement in international networks, such as the NAPOCTEP project and the Council of Europe's Destination Napoleon Cultural Itinerary, is noteworthy in these areas.
Networking promotes co-operation between the partners involved in reflection and action, in an articulated logic that makes it possible to gain scale and synergies and thus gain national and international notoriety. It is therefore important to maintain this dynamic of networked projects and joint promotion, through partnerships and collaborative networks, where it is possible to apply a common methodology to qualify the resources, their conditions for visitation, develop programming and attract tourism companies for product development.
It is therefore important to continue networking so that the Napoleonic Itineraries can continue to gain national scale and, consequently, national and international notoriety. Our country's more than eight centuries of military history represent an excellent opportunity for Portugal to position itself as a competitive military history destination in the world.
In December 2023, a consortium of thirteen municipalities, including the Historical Route of the Lines of Torres Vedras, concluded the French Invasions in Portugal Network project, supported by Turismo de Portugal's Valorizar Interior programme. This project resulted in the production of a set of tourist resources and the creation of the Napoleonic Itineraries Portugal, which, at this stage, cross national territory from Porto to Elvas and have a biannual national calendar of events. How do you see tourism contributing to territorial cohesion and co-operation between places and regions for the economic impact of the destinations involved?
Within the scope of the Support Line for the Tourist Valorisation of the Interior, Turismo de Portugal has supported various projects to develop military tourism products within the themes of the Napoleonic Itineraries and the Route of the Knights Templar. Networking, in order to gain scale and synergies, and the creation of new interpretation and communication tools for different national and foreign audiences, are important attributes of these projects.
Specifically with regard to the Napoleonic Itineraries Portugal project, we would highlight the involvement of 13 municipalities (including those that make up the RHLT), under the coordination of CIM Coimbra, with a particular focus on the development of interactive content on the resources associated with this heritage and which has resulted in excellent outputs that we hope will last over time, such as the National Events Agenda that has grown from 13 partners to a national scope.
This thematic network will continue to be dynamised as a national offer network, also involving the Regional Tourism Entities and the collaboration of Turismo de Portugal in supporting its ongoing structuring and promotion. Supply networks such as this one, based on partnerships and with a supra-regional scope, are an effective contribution to territorial cohesion and to the fulfilment of the sustainable tourism development objectives that we want for the whole country.
