Portugal: the “Best Tourist Destination in Europe”

6 October 2022

Portugal was, once again, under the spotlight at the World Travel Awards European Gala 2022, for winning, for the fifth time in a row, the Best Tourist Destination in Europe. The ceremony for the 29th European edition of these prestigious international awards took place on October 1st, with the grand finale happening in November.


António Costa Silva, Minister of the Economy and Maritime Affairs celebrated, pointing out that “These results stem from the votes of thousands of professionals in the sector, from all around the world, and this year Portugal won another 30 awards, among several destinations, regions, products and services.”


Portugal is one of the most popular travel destinations in Europe, and by opening its doors to many international visitors it justly won 30 awards, this year alone.


Lisbon won four awards, Best Metropolitan Seaside Destination, Best City Break Destination and Best Cruise Destination, in addition to an award to the Port of Lisbon that was considered the Best Cruise Port in Europe.

Porto stood out as the Best City Destination and the Algarve was elected the Best Beach Destination.


In this European edition of the World Travel Awards 2022, the Azores were considered the Best Adventure Tourism Destination and the Paiva Walkways were awarded the Best Tourist Attraction and Best Adventure Tourism Attraction. The Responsible Tourism award went to the Dark Sky Alqueva project.


Considered the “Oscars” of tourism, the World Travel Awards were established in 1993 to acknowledge, reward and celebrate excellence across all sectors of the tourism industry. The WTA brand is, nowadays, recognised globally as the ultimate hallmark of quality, with winners setting the benchmark.


The annual scores are a result of an online voting process, in which the general public and thousands of tourism and travel professionals on a global scale participate.


The world tourism Oscars gala is scheduled for November 11 in Oman.

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