“We are expanding the range of tourism offerings in Portugal and trying to combat what has been, for many years, a concentration of tourism on the coast,” the government official told Lusa news agency in Almodôvar, in the district of Beja, after the signing ceremony of the first three financing contracts within the scope of a support line of the Tourism Agenda for the Interior.

According to the Secretary of State, the '+Interior Tourism Line' has "a total investment of around 10 million euros, with close to seven million in direct support from the State", through Turismo de Portugal, and reinforces "the projects of areas that are normally associated with low density”.

The objective, he explained, involves creating a “tourism offer based on the specificity of its territories”, in order to “generate and capture new business models”.

“It is a line that aims to help structure the product, which will increase Portugal’s capacity to have a broader [tourism] offer”, he indicated.

The minister also told Lusa that, for example, the North American and German markets are “the first in terms of tourist demand for territories such as Alqueva”, in Alentejo.

Therefore, he argued, “we have to follow the trends that the markets are giving us and respond to them with a differentiated product”.

At the same time, “these investments in the interior end up having a positive effect and add a ‘layer’ to what is the product of the primary sector”.