The Regional Director for Tourism highlighted in Ponta Delgada, the importance of events like "Trail Run" for the promotion of the Azores, emphasising their potential in the dissemination of the Region's landscapes as competition scenarios and, simultaneously, as a place of leisure.

Speaking at the presentation of the "Epic Trail Run Azores - ETRA," João Bettencourt stressed that this event "brings hundreds of people to the Region, with direct impact on the local economy, and shows the best the Azores have to offer in order to captivate nature tourism lovers around the world.”

"The visibility of events that take advantage of our natural resources and enhance environmental quality, combining recreational and competitive components, will attract practitioners of this type of sports to the Region. Moreover, it is a niche market for tourists who prefer the contact with nature, which will result in increased tourism flows to the Region," said the government official.

João Bettencourt stated that the Regional Government supports the organisation of such events, which put the Region on the spotlight, "through its diversity of landscapes and the conditions for the practice of nature sports," hence resulting "in a major success for the promotion of the Azores and the projection of the archipelago as a nature tourist destination in international markets."

In his speech, the Regional Director stressed that this sector has great prospects for global growth, adding that the Azores have all the conditions to position themselves internationally as a nature tourism destination.

In this regard, the government official stressed the importance of trails, a product available on all islands throughout the year, and recalled the existence of 80 approved trails in the archipelago with a total extension over 716 kilometres.

"Despite being well-established, the Azores can still grow in this product, both in terms of supply and demand. This is especially important in the face of this new reality the Azores tourism is currently living," said the Regional Director. In this regard, the government official mentioned the improvement of accessibility to the Region due the revision of the air transport model in March, which boosted the growth of tourism to double-digit figures.

"We sincerely believe that this new reality, associated with events such as this one, bring added value to the Azores destination, making it an international reference in nature tourism, which will positively influence the increase of tourism flows," said the government official.

The "Epic Trail Run Azores" will be held for two days. It starts Saturday with a 15-kilometre nigh trail along Pinhal da Paz Forest Reserve.

On the following day, participants will cover a 27-kilometre trail that will cross Lagoa do Fogo Lake, among other landscapes, ending at "Portas do Mar" in Ponta Delgada.
 
"We are in the face of a project that is born with the ambition to become a reference in the international scene of Track Running, a track and field sport with a wide media projection. It has been garnering fans from all over the world," João Bettencourt said, stating that ETRA "is another event that is born in the Azores to the world."