Portugal uses the trump card of vaccination to attract German tourists
Portugal is using “all the trumps you have”, among them the high rate of vaccination against covid-19, to attract German tourists and recover the numbers of 2019, almost two billion euros in revenue.
“Portugal is using all the trump cards it has. We are playing with the whole deck”, underlined Secretary of State for Tourism, Rita Marques, specifying the arguments used in the three days of face-to-face meetings in the German cities of Frankfurt and Dusseldorf.
“The vaccination rate is using the trump card, which, as we know, is one of the highest in Europe. It is playing with a strategy for the tourism sector, the theme in 2017, anchored in the great pillars of sustainability (… ) With the trump card of being the first country in the world to present a health security seal, and of having trained more than 170 thousand professionals in the sector during a pandemic (…) “, said the government official, in a statement to the Lusa agency.
In 2019, the German market, “extremely important” for Portugal, it represents six million overnight stays and 1.5 million guests. On the second day of face-to-face meetings with airlines, tour operators and the specialized press, Rita Marques highlighted the importance of “establishing a context of redoubled trust”, after 20 months of the covid-19 pandemic.
“We don’t just want the numbers, we want to actively contribute to a greater territorial dispersion of German tourists in our territory (…) We don’t want them to come only in high season, we are working hard on seasonality. And we want to have an experience every time more authentic “, detailed a secretary of state.
The responsible for the tourism portfolio in the Portuguese Government underlined that the world is moving towards “a new normality”.
“More than scared, we have to be actively monitoring the situation. We have a very different situation that we had to wait 20 months ago when this pandemic was identified. We have a vaccine, a very important vaccination rate, a very functional European Certificate”, remembered.
Rita Marques assumes that the profile of the German customer is “very demanding” and is “very thirsty for niche experiences, far beyond Portugal as a sun and sea destination”, highlighting the importance of offering these products.