Portugal wants to be a world reference but lack of regularization of the dream
With the notoriety of Portuguese wines growing in the world, the tourist demand for this sector has also been changing. For many companies, what started out as a small unit for receiving visitors and tastings, as a way of leveraging the sales of their wines, has evolved into spaces for restaurants or even accommodation. But not only. There are more and more wine tasting events all over the country. A specific business area in Portugal “wants to be a worldwide reference”,
Related
Alexandre Miguel Mestre, lawyer and entrepreneur in the area of wines, does not spare critics of the situation, saying that wine tourism “lives in limbo” is because it does not allow a “land without law”, which does not allow those in the sector to even know, this activity is worth, how many jobs it secures and what wealth it generates. “There is any specific legislation, which forces you to try what cannot be applicable, but it is not easy. Wine tourism is the Legal Regime for the Installation and Operation of Tourist Enterprises, but all this implies that we can only frame wine tourism in its accommodation component, when we all know that it is much more than that. wineries and museum spaces. There is a fiscal need, even for agricultural activities, without knowing how to deal in terms, whether in terms of tourism or culture, in terms of work and at the level of the advertising regime”, explains Alexandre Miguel Mestre. The law “can also be an instrument for promoting economic growth”, he says.
The data that exist are an estimate from the Portuguese Wine Tourism Association (APENO), created in 2020 to help professionalize the sector. It points to the existence of 60,000 economic agents that provide employment, directly and indirectly, to 100 million people and generate an estimated bill of 410 million. Dinheiro Vivo requested official data from Turismo de Portugal, as well as a comment on the criticisms and difficulties pointed out by the sector, but without success.
“No IRS code applicable to workers in the sector and no specific CAE [a Classificação Portuguesa das Atividades Económicas é o que identifica o ramo de atividade ou setor onde a empresa atua para efeitos fiscais] I can’t find any numbers. Being a primordial sector, I don’t know how many wineries practice wine tourism in Portugal, how many are dedicated to this activity and I don’t know what profit it generates”, laments the people of APENO.
subscribe newsletter
The absence of a specific CAE prevents the application for funds, since, in the absence of an identification of wine tourism, it is not identified in the specifications. The solution for companies is to try to fit the various aspects into the closest activity, an accounting challenge.
Maria João Almeida guarantees that the association has been “a thorn in the side” of the government, which “continues not to seem interested” in the regularization of the sector. “We want our wine tourism to be leveled at the top. Italy is a reference, but we also want to be, at world level, and we have the capacity for that and much more”, she defends. Even because, according to Maria João Almeida, the sector continues to grow. Proof of this is the fact that APENO started, in July 2020, with 40 associates and is already on its way to 100.
At José Maria da Fonseca, wine tourism has been a focus for over six decades, as it was in the 1960s that the company began offering guided tours at its Casa Museu, in Azeitão. Professionalization already took place at the beginning of this millennium, and in 2015, it opened the doors of the wine tourism project at Adega José de Sousa, in Reguengos de Monsaraz. Today, wine tourism, wine tourism visits 5% of the total invoice of the JMF invoice and indicates that, in 2022, “franca return today” activities already allow the prediction of values for 2019, the best year ever, when 4,000 returns received more than 80 countries. The Portuguese represent 21% of the total, followed by the USA, Brazil and Germany.
Sofia Soares Franco, responsible for the company’s wine tourism, admits, however, that “a lack of specific regulation and legal framework does nothing to help this activity so important for wine producing companies”. Sofia says that the sector is “always in a gray area” and that it has been “debating for many years” to clarify this situation. And she gives examples, remembering that the activity of visits and wine tasting is not part of restaurants and bars, but is also a mere non-tourist entertainment activity. Worse still was the difficulty in applying the rules of covid-19. “We saw some times quite confused that we would be more important, so that there are many activities for a restoration, if we know many times or for an animation of tourist importance”.
Paulo Osório, administrator at Porto Réccua Vinhos, is another of the critics of the situation. Not only for the experience in the company that ensures a commercial aspect of the wines bottled by Caves Vale do Rodo – which brings together as cellars because cellars of Ré, Tabuaço and Armamar -, but simultaneously an entrepreneur on behalf of the Douro, available from a cooperative owned by five hectares of activity, in which there is some difficulty and with a small entertainment unit, but recognizes that “he doesn’t know very well how to frame the investment family to a certain degree of difficulty”.
Porto Reccua Vinhos has been dedicated to wine tourism since 2007, having transformed the point of sale of the Régua cooperative, a company with tastings and a museological aspect, but now wants to evolve, giving spaces dedicated to each of the brands that sells it, in a logic ” El Corte Inglés”. The project, which is already developed, also includes a tasting room, commented and properly harmonized, for groups of 4 to 15 people, to learn, as well as to know more expensive wines and increase the added value of the service provided.
The first calculation is at 130 next year’s goal. But Paulo Os has already mentioned the difficulties he will come across, due to the question of characterizing the activity. “or two years and years and administration a CAE for the and so muchnotourism would be easy for my colleagues in the area in administration three euros and that, in administration three, we expect to have a return in sales and services as well as in goodwill I note the brands”, he says. Accounting is a challenge. “If I want to sell merchandising material, corkscrews, corks, key rings, etc., there is no problem. But if I want to sell t-shirts, caps or raincoats, I already have to have another CAE, because ready-to-wear sales. And the commented and harmonized tastings are a beverage and meal service, it’s all a trap”, he lamented.
Problem employees: “Wine tourism, unlike others, exists, although it requires people to be more qualified and have availability on weekends and during high season. I have to fit into the office part as sales promoters or salespeople”.