Porto and the North of Portugal highlighted at 2020 Lisbon Travel Fair

Porto and the North of Portugal will be the focus of attention at next year’s Lisbon Travel Fair (BTL).
The week that the fair runs (11-15 March 2020) at Lisbon’s Parque das Nações in the International trade fair venue FIL (Feira Internacional de Lisboa), the general visiting public will also have the opportunity of getting a good idea of the places, monuments, national parks, activities, cultural events and cuisine available in the region for the coming year.
This year the overall region will highlight “four large sub-regions in that large destination which is Portugal” said Luís Pedro Martins, President of the Porto and North of Portugal Tourist Office on Wednesday.
These four sub-regions are the Douro (a UNESCO World Heritage Site) famous for its port wine vineyards, the mountainous peaks and valleys of the Minho and Trás-os-Montes and Portugal’s second city of Porto.
The entire region will be showcased at a massive 1,296 m2 stand with a host of activities, campaigns, food and wine tasting, cultural and musical events which will not only take place in the fair venue but also take to the streets of Lisbon where locals and overseas tourists will see something of the colour and traditions of the region.
“We’ll be invading Lisbon, the streets, metro stations, the main squares and we’ll have some great surprises” said Martins.
Within the main pavilion at the fair there will be 600 promotional campaigns and activities, 200 wines on display, over 200 regional culinary delights and cultural activities.
According to the latest statistics for January to September, Porto and the North of Portugal was the region that enjoyed the greatest growth with increases of close to 10% in the number of beds and tourists and 14% in revenues like-for-like on 2018.
“The figures are excellent. The region has been growing more than the national average, but these numbers act only as a motivating force and nothing more” said the tourist board president who stressed that he did not agree with competitions between national regions but rather cooperation between all of them – the Alentejo, Algarve, Lisbon and Ribatejo, Madeira and the Azores among others.
Fátima Vila Maior said, “It is for us a great honour to announce that Porto and the North Region of Portugal will be the invited national tourism region at the next Lisbon Travel Market Fair (BTL) with the participation of the Porto and North Tourist Office”.
“As you would imagine, this choice was not an easy one given the tourist number growth rates not just in 2017 but in 2018 and the same likely for the final balance of 2019.”
“At BTL we try and put the spotlight on a specific national region as a mirror of Portugal and an international country so that overseas investors and tourists can get a better understanding of what our regions have to offer” she continued.
Fátima Vila Maior also mentioned the warm reception the region also got form the ‘BTL hosted buyers’ programme which this year will focus on segments such as wine tourism, nature tourism and religious tourism, among others.