The Regional Secretary for Tourism and Transport assured on Thursday that "turning the Azores into a destination of excellence is a "major goal" for the Regional Government, which intents to accomplish it by leveraging and enhancing the "unique features" of the archipelago.

Speaking at the opening of the 39th Congress of the Portuguese Association of Travel Agencies and Tourism (APAVT) in Angra do Heroísmo, Vítor Fraga reiterated the "Regional Government's commitment to remain a partner in good and bad times." The government official also ensured that the Government will continue working to "maintain the sustainability of the sector and its capacity to create trust among all entities working with the Azores destination, directly and indirectly."

"We will use all the mechanisms we have at our disposal to create trust among businesspeople, allowing them to carry out their activities in a sustainable way," assured the government official.

Bearing this goal in mind, the Strategic Plan for the Azores Tourism will be created in 2014, defining the goals to be achieved by the year 2020, "through a process that should take advantage of the in-depth knowledge of those who work and know the destination like no other," said the Regional Secretary.

In this regard, Vítor Fraga announced that "all parties involved will be called to provide their active contribution to this process, seeing that we have become aware of the importance of planning and the clear coordination of strategies between public and private entities."

In addition to increasing tourism flows to the Azores, the Regional Secretary added that the Government "intends to move towards the segmentation of the markets with the highest growth potential. Therefore, we will be able to accomplish the goal of turning the Azores into the main nature destination nationwide as well as into one of the main maritime destinations in the Atlantic over the next ten years."

Hence, we must take up the challenge of "substantially improving our tourism offer, not only at the level hotel of units, redeveloping those that are not certified, but also at the level of the acquisition of parallel services in order to increase activities targeted at tourists and create more products."

In this regard, Vítor Fraga revealed that the Regional Government aims to "boost the revenue sources of this sector, both in quantity and quality; therefore, we will be able to move from a tourism paradigm primarily based on accommodation and the restaurant sector towards a paradigm that focus on the development of various activities and marketable tourism products."

Vítor Fraga thanked the board of APAVT - its president and all associates - "for the trust this association has given us and us and its collaboration throughout the path we have always followed together." In this context, the government official noted that this congress is being held in the year when the Azores were considered the APAVT’s Preferred Destination. This distinction is a great honour for us and it is also an important asset for the members of this association as well as for the Regional Government."