Money to be spent on ‘attracting tourism’ to boost economy
‘Portugal Events’, the events support programme suspended for almost a year after exhausting its annual allocation of €5 million, is being reactivated with double that budget, spread between 2023 and 2024, writes Lusa.
Under the terms of Order No. 101/2023 – published today in government gazette Diário da República – the €10 million budget is to be “funded exclusively by own revenues of the Portuguese Tourism Board, I. P.”
Of this allocation, €8.5 million will be directed at “events associated with the development of strategic tourism products” that, “due to their scale”, are “catalysts for attracting tourists (and) contribute to the stimulation of local economies and are able to project the image of Portugal or the region where they take place”.
The remaining €1.5 million will be channelled to support “associative or corporate events not consolidated in the events calendar of the territories where they take place”.
Excluded from support are any “operations for the organisation and holding of events that correspond to individual sponsorships or that are not targeted at priority external markets defined in the Tourism Strategy 2027 and reflected in the Annual Marketing Plan for tourism promotion of the Portuguese Tourism Board”.
According to the programme’s regulations, the ‘Portugal Events’ programme’s beneficiaries include companies of any size that hold the rights to organise events or whose main activity is organising them; convention bureaux, associations and regional tourism promotion agencies recognised by the Portuguese Tourism Confederation; and companies based abroad that organise events, “provided they have the necessary representatives in Portugal”.
The financial support to be granted is non-refundable and cannot be accumulated with other support under the same or other financial support instruments of the Tourism Board, being awarded for a single event and cannot be used for subsequent editions.
In its first edition, the ‘Portugal Events’ programme totalled 158 applications, with an associated investment of €157 million; 83 projects were approved, of which 62 were associative/corporate events, according to data released in May 2022 by the ministry of the economy and maritime affairs.
The associated investment totalled €157 million, with more than €30 million in incentives requested.
Source: LUSA