The high rate of vaccination in Portugal may allow tourism to “leverage” its rejection internationally, said this Monday by the Secretary of State for Tourism, Rita Marques.

“Portugal has one of the highest vaccination rates in the world and it is important – we understand – to leverage our observation also in this distinctive factor”, said Rita Marques, who was speaking at the World Tourism Day Conference, promoted by the Portuguese Tourism Confederation ( CTP), which takes place in Coimbra.

A member of the Government stressed that “there has been a concern to continue working on the issue of health security”, announcing that it is ready to launch “a national and international campaign to encourage the adoption of safe insurance”, in order to “strengthen the positioning of Portugal “also in this area.

During the speech, in which she addressed several of the measures to support the sector’s recovery, Rita Marques also highlighted that there are 23,000 adherents in the country to the “Clean and Safe” seal.

Prior to his intervention, António Brochado Correia, from the PwC consultancy, stressed that Portugal “now has an opportunity” to position itself in the global market, given the high rate of vaccination in the country.

“In the short and medium term, the country can build on the good work it has done in this area and attract more tourism,” he noted, emphasizing that health has become an area highly valued by tourists.

In his presentation, entitled “Tourism State”, António Brochado Correia stressed that tourism took “a strong hit” with a pandemic, and it is only expected that Europe will return to comparable volume levels with 2019 “only in 2024”.

In an interview with Lusa on Saturday, the president of the CTP, Francisco Calheiros, had also highlighted the success of the vaccination process in Portugal, which has a “huge” impact on tourism.

“Since we are, at this moment, an extraordinarily safe destination, there is no reason why we should not start to resume growth in 2022 [do setor] and we all hope that in 2023 we can reach the numbers of 2019, without ever forgetting that 2017, 2018 and 2019 were extraordinary years, perhaps the best years for Portuguese tourism,” he stated in the interview.

The World Tourism Day Conference, organized by the Portuguese Tourism Confederation, takes place in the Old Church of Convento São Francisco, in Coimbra.

JGA (MPE / MSF) // MSF

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