Industrial tourism is a new bet for Turismo de Portugal
Industrial Tourism is the new big bet of Turismo de Portugal
The project involves five Tourism Regions, such as the Regional Directorates of Tourism of the Azores and Madeira, seven Portuguese municipalities, the Portuguese Industrial Heritage Association, the Mines Route and Mining and Geological Points of Interest in Portugal and the Vista Alegre and New Hand factories. Lab, which created the Portuguese Industrial Heritage Network.
The new bet will provide tourists with experiences related to the production processes or their historical and cultural past.
It is a tourism of Portugal that, according to the vice president of Turismo de Portugal, Teresa Monteiro, has the advantage of “allowing to know properly the identified and publicized products”, making a tourist offer “more attractive and that were not sufficiently known and publicized” – the most competitive.”
In statements to RenaissanceTeresa Monteiro explains that “today, it is important to present new and different experiences to tourists”.
Apostasy is seen as having potential, given that there are only about 10% of growing products still high, which means that there are fertile products”, added Teresa Monteiro.
It is in the North and Center that, at the moment, the largest number of tourist points of interest are concentrated. Closed windows in the typologies of fashion and textiles, jewellery, ceramics and agri-food, extractive industry, energy, transport, services and communications, metalworking and cork.
In Covilã, one of the business units that adhered to the concept is installed.
New Hand Lab is today the face of a wool factory founded in 1853 and which remained in operation until 2002, when the Administration decided to stop the activity. Some time later, “at the insistence of some people from Turismo de Portugal”, says Francisco Afonso, the administrator, the space would be remodeled, to make room for the New Hand Lab. There, visitors can see the old machines used to make wool.
For the entrepreneur, the bet on Industrial Tourism was “a great asset”. “It’s a way of perpetuating, conserving the building and giving it life,” he added.
Fight seasonality with olive oil and wine
Known for the product “Sun and Beach”, the Algarve Tourism Region decided to integrate the project to diversify the offer.
Fátima Catarina, vice president of the Tourism Region, told Renascença that industrial tourism will allow visitors to show “the know-how industry”, such as the production of olive oil and wine, which will “attenuate the seasonality of tourist demand that is much higher in the Algarve”.
In Marinha Grande, one of the spaces dedicated to Industrial Tourism was the Cencal – Professional Training Center for the Ceramic Industry, where this Friday a unique piece of blown glass was produced.
Deeply industrialized, the municipality of Marinha Grande is also rich in beaches, so for Aurélio Ferreira, the mayor, Industrial Tourism comes “to complement the tourist offer”.
Ana Cláudia has already done industrial tourism three times. Visit the Coffee Science Center in Campo Maior, Viarco in S. João da Madeira, where you learned how pencils are made, and also the Footwear Technological Center, the Footwear and Headwear Museum, also in S. João from Madeira.
What attracts her the most, she told the Renaissance, “is to know the production processes, the markets where the products are sold, in short, what is behind the development of the product sold, on a day-to-day basis, used.” Taking into account all “the knowledge that is gained in this type of tourism is very gratifying”.
This Friday’s session marked the beginning of the 1st National Week “Discovering Industrial Tourism” which takes place in various parts of the country until April 14 and aims to promote industrial tourism as a tourist product that has consolidated in Portugal, through the increase of an experience supported by visits to factories in operation, museum equipment linked to industrial complexes and a “know how to offer” complemented with different contact with products and production processes.