10 March 2016 - As part of its tourism promotion efforts, the Philippine Embassy in Lisbon under the leadership of Ambassador Philippe J. Lhuillier, regularly participates in Portugal’s biggest annual tourism fair, Bolsa de Turismo de Lisboa – BTL. For this year, BTL 2016 was held from March 02 to 06 at the Feira Industrial de Lisboa located in Parque das Naçoes in Lisbon.
On its 28th year, the annual fair gathered together Portugal’s national and regional tourism boards, airline companies, hotels and resorts, tour operators, travel agencies and other members of the tourism industry. This year’s edition saw more than 60,000 visitors and 400 foreign tour operators from 36 countries participating in this prestigious international tourism fair.
This is the third time the Philippines participated in this event. The Philippines is slowly gaining inroads into the Portuguese market as a holiday destination, as manifested by increasing rates of tourist arrivals from Portugal of 6.82% in 2013 and 14.88% in 2014. For the period January to October 2015, according to data from the Philippine Department of Tourism, tourist arrivals from Portugal increased by around 21% in comparison to the figures for the similar period of January to October 2014.
Ambassador Lhuillier said, “The Embassy’s continuous efforts to promote the Philippines as a travel destination for the Portuguese are slowly gaining ground. While there has been around a 21% increase in tourist arrivals from Portugal from January to October 2015, when compared to a similar period in 2014, the numbers are still quite modest. There is much more room to grow these numbers over the years as these figures merely represent 10% of the Portuguese that travel to holiday in Southeast Asia every year. There is still a lot of work for the Embassy to do in raising awareness of the Philippines to the Portuguese people and building linkages between the travel industries of both countries so that a variety of products can be developed for the local market.”
Ambassador Lhuillier believes that the tourist attractions of the Philippines, its rich Catholic tradition, shared Latin socio-cultural heritage and warm hospitality make the country an attractive destination for the Portuguese market. END
