Present at the presentation that took place at the Portuguese embassy in the Spanish capital, the Secretary of State for Tourism, Rita Marques, underlined the “great added value” that this type of specialized tourism can mean and of importance associated with routes made by the Portuguese Nobel laureate José Saramago.

Turismo de Portugal and the José Saramago Foundation are partners in the “Viagem a Portugal Revisited” project, which consists of a “reconstruction” of the itineraries traveled by the Portuguese writer and described in the homonymous work, by contemporary national and international authors.

The winner of the José Peixo Literary Prize in 2001, José Luís Peixo, will make six of the twelve routes and challenges by Saramago.

Other Portuguese authors will make the remaining six trips, their names and foreign writers are not yet known.

According to Turismo de Portugal, “an opportunity to get to know Portugal’s tourism destination, its landscapes and people, but also the immense territory where Saramagos, as a local tourism destination, has landscapes and literary people.

José Saramago toured Portugal between October 1979 and July 1980 at the invitation of the Círculo de Leitores, writing “Viagem a Portugal” which describes the country and its people.

The project aims to “invite a visit to Portugal through the writer’s eyes and encourage interaction with other literary itineraries”, based on other works by Saramago and in places mentioned in them.

A digital platform “Viagem a Portugal Revisited” will also be launched with the itineraries of the work and the contents of the places revisited by the authors and posting available to all.

According to the organization that promotes tourism, it is intended to “put Portugal on the map of literary destinations”.

Portugal is one of the 107 countries that will participate in the Madrid International Tourism Fair (Fitur), between 19 and 23 January, with 52 companies and seven tourist regions.

According to the organizers, the five-day event will have 600 exhibitors, 6,933 companies and the Dominican Republic as the event’s partner country.

The fair as great “generate confidence in the market, encourage the travel sector and the more serious business sector after two years of business tourism of the two most serious years”