Most people will know by now that the Algarve is quite well known both in the Europe as well as all around the world for being a great tourist destination for those looking for sun, sand and wonderful weather all year-round.

That is still true however recently it appears that the Algarve will start being promoted as a health and wellbeing destination as well.

The first Congress on Health and Wellbeing Tourism took place in Faro on 9 November and it spawned the idea of promoting the Algarve region as an ideal destination for health and wellbeing as a way of attracting more tourists to the region and as a way of fighting growing unemployment.

The event consisted of the first general assembly of the Portuguese Association for health and Wellbeing Tourism, during which its commission for this new organization was also formed.

The  association was built on a national level and it will include members from throughout the country, including the islands of Madeira and the Azores, and also take into consideration the various sub-products related to health and wellbeing tourism.

The goal of the association is to improve the position of the region’s tourist appeal as a way of attracting more tourists to the region. By doing this they wish to boost profits for the partners that join the association and at the same time stimulate employment.

The thinking behind it is that as unemployment rises, so does criminality, and an increase in criminality will then have a negative effect on the tourism which would then spiral continuously downward.

Now this might be a bit odd considering how the concept of health and wellbeing tourism is linked with the private sector however the public sector has a very important role to carry out as well by guaranteeing the safety of the destination.

This is expected to have an effect on all the businesses in the region, including the Algarve car rental one.