“We are responsible for half of the country’s growth”, highlights the president of the Portuguese Association of Travel Agencies
The travel distribution sector in Portugal “is perhaps going through the best moment of all, if we talk about sales, recovery of balance sheets, results or remunerations paid”, highlighted Pedro Costa Ferreira, president of the Portuguese Association of Travel and Tourism Agencies (APAVT) at the association’s congress, which began this Thursday in Huelva, Spain, and runs until October 26th.
“Considering the direct, indirect and induced effects, the economic value of tourist distribution, reported for 2022, exceeded 5.8 billion euros”, highlighted the president of APAVT, citing a study carried out by the consultancy EY.
The value generated by the travel sector in Portugal “corresponds to 2.8% of the national Gross Value Added (GVA) and was responsible for 126 thousand jobs, 2.6% of employment in Portugal”, detailed Pedro Costa Ferreira.
The head of the travel agencies association also highlighted that “associated with the growth in economic value, the impact of the aggregate of tourist distribution on remuneration also increased significantly compared to 2019, reaching practically 4 billion euros, a value that represents around 3, 5% of the national total”.
But “a sector that grows and is responsible for half of our country’s growth” is also being “very attacked for the bad reasons, which we have to prevent from becoming normalized narratives”, highlighted Costa Ferreira, referring to the growing discourse about excess tourism.
And he added that APAVT is “focused on building joint work with the city councils that aims to “correct any errors” and with the aim of “building mobility that does not exclude anyone”.
Call for “greater cooperation between Portugal and Spain”
The president of the Portuguese Tourism Confederation (CTP), Francisco Calheiros, highlighted, at the APAVT congress in Huelva, that “the greatest destination in the world is the Iberian Peninsula”.
“If we are competitors in Europe, when we refer to long-distance markets, such as the North American or Chinese, we have to be allies”, observed Francisco Calheiros.
“We all win if there is greater cooperation between Portugal and Spain”, concluded the president of the tourism confederation, also focusing on the railway issue, warning that the issue risks “becoming an airport II, as nothing is decided ”.
Pedro Machado, Secretary of State for Tourism, guaranteed, on the government side, “the desire to work together with Spain, as expressed in the last Iberian summit”.
“It was assumed between the two governments that Portugal and Spain are the largest receiving countries in the world in terms of tourism”, highlighted Pedro Machado, adding that “Iberian cooperation projects are underway, for example at the level of border castles”, gastronomy or heritage, and placing emphasis on “the enormous capacity that we have, in Portugal and Spain, to project ourselves at an international level”.
