Sustainable Tourism Law

T here is no future for tourism without sustainability. Sustainability in its several dimensions: social, environmental, economic, territorial. In Portugal, the tourism has come to demonstrate its ability to turn more and more into a sustainable activity throughout the year and throughout the territory and be an engine of job creation. Despite the good time that tourism lives in Portugal, the challenges are many and we can only respond and have the ability to anticipate with articulated interventions and cooperation. So, we need to cooperatively create a strategy with all the players and civil society within a horizon of 10 years and with focus and objectives based on indicators of sustainability. We clearly assume in 2027 Strategy the ambition that Portugal has to be among the most sustainable destinations in the world. And we assume goals of: • environmental sustainability: – to ensure that more than 90% of companies in the tourism sector adopt operation and promotion measures of soft mobility systems (in 2015, only about 50% of the tourist companies had efficiency measures in energy and water resources) • social sustainability: – to ensure that tourism generates a positive impact on resident populations and that more than 90% of residents consider positive the impact of tourism in their territory; – to extend tourist activity all year, reducing seasonal index of 37.5% to 33%; – to duplicate the level of education secondary education and post- secondary education in tourism (30% to 60%);