Berta Cabral highlights success of Azores' presence at BTL and good prospects for tourism in 2024 - Communication

Secretaria Regional do Turismo, Mobilidade e Infraestruturas

The Regional Secretary for Tourism, Mobility and Infrastructures, Berta Cabral, stated that the participation of the Azores and their stand at the Lisbon Travel Market (BTL) was "a huge success," with very good prospects for the regional sector in 2024.

This year, the Azores were the National Guest Destination at BTL. Between February 28 and March 3, several thousand people visited the Region's stand, which had the slogan "Azores All Year Round."

"We make an extremely positive assessment of the Azores' participation in the country's largest tourism fair. Professionals in the sector and the thousands of people who had the opportunity to get to know the best that the Azores has to offer visitors agree that our participation in BTL was a success. We had a programme that provided information and promoted the best of what is being done in the world," she said.

"We have to congratulate - because it is well deserved and fair - all those who have contributed to this very positive and professional presence of the Azores at this great event, including Visit Azores, our 19 municipalities, the companies present, the professionals and institutional representations, our partners and, of course, the Regional Directorate for Tourism team. It was a joint high-quality effort that deserved to be highlighted at BTL," she continued.

Berta Cabral also mentioned that the main message of the Azorean participation in BTL was to "continue working to mitigate seasonality, one of the major strategic goals, whilst demonstrating that the Azores are undoubtedly a sustainable destination."

As she noted, BTL is one of the most important tools for continuing to boost the main tourism market in the Azores - the domestic market.

At a time when the Azores are breaking all records as far as tourism is concerned, she emphasised that BTL made it possible to "showcase the richness of the Region and the increase in the tourist offer to other markets," in addition to the fact that the Azores are "an international success story in terms of sustainable tourism."

According to Berta Cabral, the Azores will "continue to work" on this successful strategy.

However, the Regional Secretary called for the need to constantly monitor economic, environmental and social sustainability, always taking into account the reality of each of the nine islands.

"Tourism has to create value for the economy; it has to create value for the people. Tourism is only good if it is good for visitors and residents. We cannot forget that the Azores are a young destination," she emphasised.

The Regional Secretary reiterated that tourism, due to its wide-ranging scope, is increasingly "a lever for the regional economy," and for this reason, it is "very important to combine efforts to maintain the sustainability of the destination and create new value for its differentiation."

Although 2023 was an extremely positive year for tourism in the Azores, the government official noted that "we need to keep working and keep up with the market."

She continued: "We need to continue investing in the improvement of our products and the qualification of our resources and, simultaneously, modernise and evolve technologically in various aspects, as important silent revolutions are already underway, such as artificial intelligence."

"It is crucial that we work, in a sustained and determined manner, to reduce seasonality. We have to steadily make ground in this battle," the government official stressed. 

Expressing her optimism about the future of the sector and its importance to the Azorean economy, she nevertheless acknowledged that "there are challenges arising from the current international situation."

"All of this has tempered our forecasts, but we firmly believe that 2024 will be another year of excellent performance. According to the information we have gathered from the companies and professionals at BTL, the expectations are for another year of huge success in the Azores," she added.