Pedro Machado: “in the Centre of Portugal we have a very diverse offer”

The president of Turismo do Centro de Portugal says that even in the areas most affected by the fires of June and October it is still possible to provide tourists with good experiences, including composite products. Speaking to Portugal de Lés a Lés, Pedro Machado does not hide the great impact that the tragedies had in the landscape and in the demand, but he underlines that “the Centre is very vast and has a great diversity of touristic offer”.   Hit the road – How can the Centre be made attractive to tourists, namely the national ones?

Pedro Machado – This is the most painful mission that we have in the near future. First of all, we are rehabilitating all those that had material damages through concrete measures. A treasury line was created by Turismo de Portugal, which allows access to immediate working capital, so that people may be able to help themselves, and, in this way, be compensated for the losses, gain some breathing space and oxygen, as they have lost not only their property but also their operational capacity.

Secondly, the Valorizar Programme was expanded from 30 million euros to 60 million euros, which will allow the reimbursement of some indirect damages, including to what was one of the Centre’s trademarks: the trails, the footpaths, the cycle paths, the ecopaths, the river beaches will also have a line of funding to meet this emergency.

Thirdly, we are trying to change the perception that was immediately created among consumers, particularly the Portuguese. In fact, the fires that occurred in June and October were a calamity, and people have the perception that a lot of things burnt, but we don’t really know what. What we are transmitting to Portuguese consumers, in the first instance, is that there are many products and infrastructures that are able to receive tourists. The Centre didn’t burn down completely and even in those municipalities most affected, like Oliveira do Hospital, there are structures that are there and available. It is obvious that the landscape was severely affected, it is obvious that one of our greatest assets was destroyed, but there are other assets: there is culture, history, gastronomy; there is heritage – both tangible and intangible – there are many of our vestiges and historical resources that are available to be visited even in the affected areas.

Fortunately, there is a good response. It is obvious that there were drops in bookings in the period immediately following the fires, but today we are starting to recover and this is the direction we are working in, seeking to diversify our offer. Wine tourism is one of the areas in which we can diversify our offer in these territories. The heart of Bairrada, the heart of Dão, of Beira Interior, are in the territory that was hit by the fires in October and it is possible there to have a good gastronomic experience, a good wine experience, to conciliate these two with health and well-being, because our thermal spas are available.

The heart of the spas of Portugal is essentially in the territories of the Dão and Serra da Estrela and it is possible through the so-called composite products to change the public perception and make people come again.

HTR – But without appealing to solidarity tourism… that is not your attitude.

PM – That is not the spirit. We understand that there was a phase for that national solidarity and it must be said that in these times of emergency, disaster and catastrophe we are – in fact – a unique people.

The perception we have and the answers we receive from our businessmen is: come, visit and stay, but do not come out of solidarity. Come because we have a good product, we have extraordinary conditions and so we want to showcase what we have, in addition to what was one of the main motivations for the visit, which was the landscape. This was in fact affected, but fortunately Mother Nature has the ability to renew herself and today we can see, after the first rains, that there is already a mantle of vegetation that is beginning to emerge and that is starting to paint all that territory of Figueiró dos Vinhos, Pedrógão Grande and Castanheira de Pera, which was painted black and grey, green. But it takes time for that change to take place.

HTR – In the meantime, people can still have good experiences throughout the Centre of the country.

PM – The Centre is very vast. It is not by chance that we have a signature that says that we are a country within a country. The centre of Portugal does not have characteristics like those of other more mature destinations, like Algarve, Alentejo, Madeira or Lisbon, which are normally destinations associated to two or three tourist products.

Centro de Portugal has the value of having several tourism products. We can think about religious tourism, with Fátima, Jewish tourism, the Portuguese Way of Saint James; we can think about health and well-being, with about 50% of the spas in Portugal; we can think about the mountains, and the Serra da Estrela, part of the Serra da Lousã, the Serra do Açor, have assets that can be enjoyed today; we can think about gastronomy? We are in Bairrada and here we can enjoy unique dishes in the country, where the suckling pig is a reference, but where we can also associate the kid, the chanfana, the cheeses, the sweets…

The Centre region has this diversity of tourist attractions that allows it to compensate – if possible – for the decrease in demand that may be registered at this time.

It also has a large geographical area. The Centre is 100 municipalities, almost 5 times the size of the Algarve. Fifty-nine municipalities were affected, directly or indirectly, by these fires – which means that 50 per cent of the region is practically intact, so it could also help.

Cities like Aveiro, Coimbra, Leiria, Castelo Branco, part of the West like Óbidos, Nazaré, Torres Vedras, Alcobaça, Tomar… there is a panoply of products with which the region can and should continue to affirm itself and which can, in some way, compensate the territories that have suffered this tragedy.

And that is the work we are doing: betting on composite products, trying to bring in tour operators so that we can show that the whole centre didn’t burn down. The Wine Tourism Days are a good example of this: it is possible to have a good experience with thematic visits to farms, to spaces that are clearly geared and qualified for wine tourism, many of them with a very strong cultural component, as is the case of Caves Aliança, where we have the Undergroud Museum, a unique piece of work in the country and, I would venture to say, in Europe as a whole, where art, wine and gastronomy coexist well.