Algarve cooking vacations distinguished at Travel Food Awards

The project “Algarve Cooking Vacations” has been distinguished as the ‘Best Project for 2018’ in the ‘International Brand’ category at the Travel Food Award 2018.

The awards are organised by the Italian Tourism Press Association (GIST) and handed out at a ceremony on Friday 12 October during the TTG Travel Experience, the main tourism fair organised for professionals in Italy.

“This recognition has come at the right time as the Algarve Tourism Region (Região de Turismo do Algarve) has just presented a study that calls on the appearance of wine and cuisine tourism routes in the Algarve.

“It is very satisfying to see our work recognised and rewarded by an external and independent body. This is a team project from partners involving many people who are to be congratulated,” says João Fernandes, President of the Algarve Tourism Region.

This was the first edition of the Travel Food Awards, an initiative that involved many candidates with a wide range of international events and projects linked to food and wine tourism and which were evaluated by a jury comprising Italian food and wine journalists. The jury evaluated the projects based on originality, quality, the degree of involvement of local communities, environmental awareness, economic sustainability and communication strategies.

The fact that “Algarve Cooking Vacations” have been distinguished by this initiative in Italy was also highlighted by the Algarve Tourism Region which stressed that the Italian market is “one of the tourist issuing markets that had grown the most in the Algarve in terms of numbers of hotel room bookings to July 2018 (+25.5%) is “extremely gratifying and important,” says João Fernandes.