Secretary of State for Tourism: Events help the Portugal brand ‘gain notoriety’

# tags: Events , Tourism , APECATE

Pedro Machado, Secretary of State for Tourism, believes that events help the Portugal brand ‘gain notoriety’.

Present at the APECATE Congress - the Portuguese Association of Congress, Tourism and Events Companies, which took place in Angra do Heroísmo on 3 and 4 April, Pedro Machado told Event Point that events ‘are, in fact, an extraordinary partner’ not only for attracting tourists, but also ‘so that we can have a more lasting experience from the outset’.

‘Events are increasingly, and Portugal now has this experience, events that mobilise large numbers of people. Today we have events of over 50,000, 100,000, more than 100,000 people coming to Portugal, choosing Portugal to take part in music festivals, motor sports - in the MotoGP that we're going to have in 2025, it's estimated that more than 80,000 people will come... It's basically these events that help us capture and raise awareness of the Portugal brand,’ said the Secretary of State for Tourism.

For Pedro Machado, tourism in Portugal ‘is doing well and is to be commended’. The Secretary of State for Tourism recalled that ‘2024 was indeed an extraordinary year: we passed 31 million guests, 80 million overnight stays, more than 27 billion in revenue’.

‘In 2025, everything points - the indicators we have available today - to growth of between 8% and 10%, which means it's growing. And business tourism, sports tourism, ecotourism, wine tourism are variables that we are currently structuring in order to diversify Portugal's capacity to extend its perimeter to new source markets. Today we have more Americans, more Canadians, more Mexicans, more Poles through religious tourism... Therefore, product diversification is also a strategy that we consider to be a winner if we are to achieve greater success,’ he argues.