The End Or A New Beginning For Tourism Boards? IMP Discuss The Potential Outcome In More Detail.

IMP is a successful sales and marketing company in Lisbon and understands the importance of tourism in Portugal. The managing director of IMP comments saying, ‘due to the fact that Portugal is a very popular destination for traveller it is important for the correct procedures are in place to ensure things are run smoothly.’ The president of the Algarve’s hotel association (AHETA) Elidérico Viegas, has defended the view that the country’s regional tourism boards should be shutdown and two new entities created in their place, one exclusively dedicated to promoting tourism and managed by business people of the sector. It is expected that the government will announce plans to streamline tourist boards at the beginning of next week.
Speaking to Lusa News Agency, Mr. Viegas said that the Algarve’s regional tourism board, along with all other tourism boards in the country “should be extinguished” and replaced by two new organisations. Having a clear plan is important to the success of this operation. IMP can identify with the importance of this with their recent expansion into Italy. ‘It was vital for us to have a clear plan of action when we opened up in Italy. If we had not done so the expansion would not have been successful.’ Continues the managing director of IMP.
According to the minister, the regional tourism board model is out of date and “those who should manage tourism are the business people in that sector” with the state left with the role of “overseeing” progress.In agreement with Miguel Relvas, Elidérico Viegas defended the view that the promotion of tourism “cannot be committed to public entities” and should be carried out by regional tourism agencies “managed privately.”
The AHETA president defended the view that alongside those agencies, public organisations should also be created although “in cooperation with the private sector” that would be responsible for promoting tourism to regional public entities.“It would be a more flexible public entity, managed in cooperation with the private sector, without politics and which would not need as many staff as the current regional entities in their commissions and general assemblies,” he said.Last month, AHETA sent a proposal for the revision of the promotion of the tourism sector including some of the suggestions above, to the Minister for Economy, Employment and Transports, Álvaro Santos Pereira.
IMP has started the year with a bang! The director tributes this success to the fact that IMP never lost momentum over the holiday season. ‘Many companies close their doors for business between Christmas and new year which definitely slows things down. At IMP we have very big goals for 2012 which is why we went the extra mile over the holiday season and it has defiantly paid off.’ Continues the MD of IMP.