Lisbon has the fourth highest growth rate in Europe for foreign visitors, but nobody knows what they are doing.
There will be an estimated 3.56 million foreign visitors to Portugal’s capital this year, spending €1.620 billion.
This total spend is way behind the big cities of London or Paris of course, but is a credible performance with numbers growing 8% per year since 2012.
Lisbon’s growth rate is below that of Istanbul, Hamburg and Copenhagen, according to MasterCard Global Destination Index, but Lisbon has attracted 42% more tourists compared to the 2.5 million visitors in 2011.
At the top of the index is London, which this year will receive 18.82 million international visitors expected to spend €18.6 billion.
One of the problems is that Portugal’s tourist authorities have little idea what people do when they get here, hence the need for the Tourism Innovation Competition launched today as a joint project between two Lisbon universities and the national tourist board.
Pedro Oliveira from the joint university initiative, considers that this information is very important for the sector and for the national economy.
"There is a huge lack of knowledge about what our tourists are doing. We have some official statistics, we know how many are visiting each monument, but this is not enough, we need to know more about their activities, their behavior and preferences as this information has an economic value for all operators.
"If we use innovative ways to get this information, perhaps we will be able to manage tourism in a much more interesting and thoughtful manner."
The Tourism Innovation Competition runs until the end of August and in September the three finalists will champion their ideas at a conference on the importance of innovation in tourism management.
The President of Turismo de Portugal, João Cotrim Figueiredo said today that we need to know what's going on and be looking into the future.
The Secretary of State for Tourism, Adolfo Mesquita Nunes, said the competition is another step which uses the digital economy which should help the sector innovate and progress, and show that tourism is more than just hotels and restaurants.
