Algarve wins World Tourism Award
We like to talk about the Algarve region – both good and less good – because we believe in giving you a very complete picture of the region. Sometimes we report on the unemployment rate and the various taxes and tools, but sometimes we talk about great destinations, festivals and as is today’s case, about the Algarve winning a World Tourism Award.
But region of the Algarve received the award for ‘The Best European Beach Destinations’ beating destinations such as Cannes – France, Corfu – Greece, Costa Smeralda – Sardinia, Marbella – Spain and Oludeniz – Turkey.
The Algarve wasn’t the only region in Portugal that was awarded at this year’s awards, the capital Lisbon was chosen to be the number one ‘Short Break Destination in Europe’, beating eight other finalists – London, Madrid, Paris, Rome, Venice, Dublin and Istanbul.
These awards are given by the World Travel Awards – WTA – which are considered to be the top awards scheme in the industry, oftentimes being referred to as the ‘Travel Oscars’. Lisbon won its award for the third time.
This year, the ceremony was held in Antalya, Turkey.
According to the president and founder of the WTA – Graham Cooke – the Turismo de Lisboa has won the gold prize which demonstrates to consumers the continued efforts undertaken to improve the local tourism products and services that Lisbon offers.
The World Travel Awards are given out according to the online votes of travel professional from around the world. This means that the beach award is based on the views of travel professionals which are starting to be steadily influenced by the growing publicity surrounding the oil and gas drilling set to take place in 2014 not far offshore along the Algarve’s hitherto pristine coastline.
It’s a pretty well-known fact that oil rigs and tourism are not known to mix well, so it is expected that the Algarve economy will suffer if it starts to be seen mainly as a beach destination with a likelihood of oil residues and drilling chemicals being released in the presently clean waters.
