The Regional Secretary for Energy, Environment and Tourism defended today that "the proposal that best serves the Azores tourism involves the development of an integrated management model for tourism resources and products, covering all of them and not just some, such as hiking trails."
 
Marta Guerreiro spoke in Ponta Delgada during a hearing at the Committee on Parliamentary Affairs, Environment and Labour of the Legislative Assembly on a draft regional legislative decree regarding a legal scheme for the protection and classification of regional hiking trails submitted by PSD party.
 
The Regional Secretary stressed that the Government advocates a new management model that “will clarify the entities responsible for planning, proposing, implementing, maintaining and monitoring tourism resources and products, as well as their sources of funding. Additionally, it will contribute to the qualification of tourism activity companies as well as to the provision of high quality services and experiences to tourists."
 
According to the Secretary for Tourism, this is "an integrated and cohesive strategy that is not just about one product, but about all those awarded with priority status. It does not exclude one over the other, but rather develop them together since they are of paramount importance in the dynamics of our tourism offer," according to the sector planning documents such as PEMTA and POTRAA.
 
In this context, Marta Guerreiro stressed that the proposal under consideration at the committee "does not present a vision of the future interconnected with the main planning tools of the tourism sector, nor does it respond to the current stage of development of regional tourism."
 
“This proposal is limited in terms of what PEMTA and POTRAA define for the integrated management of tourism resources on various islands of the archipelago, being a proposal similar to the current legal scheme on the Region's hiking trails," stressed the government official. According to her, "it does not add anything new, nor does it allow the product to be developed in an integrated manner, as provided for in existing planning documents."