Speaking to TTG at WTM London, Visit Portugal president Carlos Abade said the plan was built around several key pillars such as spreading tourism around the country more evenly, reducing seasonality, and forging better ties between tourism and Portugal's key industries – such as winemaking.
In addition, Abade said Portugal was looking to create better pathways into tourism, particularly for migrants to the country, and would be redoubling its efforts to train a new generation of travel and tourism workers.
Abade said tourism was a important tool in ensuring and improving “cohesion” throughout the country, with the sector now accounting for around 12% of Portugal’s GDP and 20% of its exports.
Portugal currently sits 12th in World Economic Forum’s Travel and Tourism Development Index. "Our goal is to elevate our ranking and to reach the top 10 within the next three years," said Abade.
"This means growing in a balanced way throughout the country all year round and to be more competitive compared with other countries. That means we need to be better in terms of infrastructure, training people and improving our tourism offer."
Pressed on whether Portugal was experiencing any of the overtourism issues that have bubbled over in neighbouring Spain in recent years, Abade said an initial three-year action plan would seek to address the balance between the needs of people living in Portugal's cities and tourists.
"Our goal, at the end of the day, is to improve the quality of life of people who live in our country," said Abade. "This is our goal. We are a public entity and we know tourism is a strong tool to transform our society positively."
Diversification
Abade said Portugal welcomed more than 30 million tourists in 2024, who stayed for more than 80 million room nights, generating around €28 billion in spend – a record year for the country.
From the UK specifically, Portugal’s single largest market, some 2.5 million tourists visited the country last year spending more than 10 million room nights there resulting in spend of around €4 billion.
"The British market is very important to Portugal," he stressed. "In 2025, we are investing more than €5 million in campaigns and initiatives to promote Portugal in this market."
Visit Portugal president Carlos Abade (Credit: Visit Portugal)
Abade said Portugal was currently seeing growth from the UK market of around 4.5% this year when comparing September 2024 with September 2025. He added international tourist receipts were up by around 5% year-on-year in September.
"More than 50% of the British who visit Portugal spending their holidays in the Algarve, as well as Lisbon and Madeira," he continued. "So our goal is to increase our presence in the British market, but also to diversify."
He highlighted the north and centre of the country as places ripe for more visitation, as well as Portugal's Alentejo region and the Azores.
Abade stressed Portugal was also keen to grow visitation from other source markets. Targets include Canada, Mexico and Australia, and Asian markets such as Japan, China and South Korea, the latter two now with direct flight connections.
Work to do
Other key pillars of Portugal's strategy include sustainable mobility, introducing new technologies and artificial intelligence to improve tourism flows and help with problem-solving, and new training initiatives.
The latter will involve strengthening Portugal's network of hospitality schools, with a new centre inaugurated in Angola earlier this month. Abade said tourism would play an increasingly important role helping migrants to the country integrate.
Away from tourism strategy, asked about Portugal's preparations for the EU Entry-Exit System, Abade acknowledged Portugal had work to do to make it easier to enter the country, highlighting Lisbon airport as a sticking point.
He said the government had approved a new working group that would be working to "strongly reduce" the amount of time it takes for people to enter the country, an effort which will be supported by investment and renovations.
A new airport south of Lisbon is planned, although this is unlikely to be operational for at least another 10 years. In the intervening time, Portugal will invest in increasing capacity at Lisbon's current Humberto Delgado airport and working to bolster load factors.
"It's a way to keep growing within the infrastructure we have," he said, adding effort was going into promoting other entry points like Porto and Faro on the mainland.
