More Than a Million Tourists Visit the Douro

12 November 2017

Demand has been rising steadily but this year’s prolonged summer will lead to a new record: more than one million people will have visited the Douro river basin in 2017

The extended summer has benefited river tourism in the Douro where, this year, a total of one million passengers were expected to visit the river.

The Via Navarra do Douro (VND), which descends the river from Barca de Alva to Porto, is attracting ever more tourists who choose to travel on small boats, day cruises or boat-hotels, for trips that can last from one hour to one week.

An official source of the Douro, Leixões and Viana do Castelo Ports Administration (APDL), told the Lusa agency that they are estimating that the record number of one million fluvial passengers will traverse the Douro by the end of the year.

As of 2017, 60 operators with 147 vessels, of which 20 are boat-hotels, were operating on the waterway.

Last year, 863,043 tourists crossed the Douro on 85 vessels, belonging to 47 operators.

“This year the tourist season has been extended, and at this moment we are continuing with activities on the river. We have reservations until the end of November and even for December,” said António Pinto, from Douro à Vela, which provides private and exclusive tours from the Folgosa pier in Armamar.

The executive said that 2017 has been “the best” of the nine years he has owned the company.” And the trend expected to continue. More and more people are discovering the Douro and its fantastic estates, wines, gastronomy and culture,” he stated.

António Pinto said that his company “does not give boat rides” but “provides the most genuine experience possible of the river Douro.”

There are more and more Portuguese clients among the company’s customers. They are people with purchasing power that is “a little above average” and “also have great cultural knowledge.”

At the mouth of the Douro, in Porto, this was also a “good year” for the company Sailing 360, which belongs to Ricardo Oliveira, who provides short tours on small boats through the mouth of the river between Porto and Gaia and up the river.

“Compared to last year, this was a much better,” he said.

The company has always been growing. It started operations five years ago with a boat and now has five and, according to the person in charge, the great difficulty has been to find “people who want to work.”

These small boat trips are one of the fastest growing segments of the waterway.

On land, Pedro Teixeira’s principal clients are the fluvial tourists, especially the ones who arrive on hotel-boats.

“This was undoubtedly the best year ever for our partners and us,” he said.

Pedro Teixeira launched a project called Da_Vide, that uses residues from cleaning vineyards after the harvest to sell products that they have developed, such as pens, spoons, magnets, key rings and even Christmas ornaments that are highly sought after by Americans. This year he based his work in the Enoteca da Quinta da Avessada, in Favaios, Alijó.

In 1990, the inauguration of the 210 kilometres of Douro Waterway created the possibility for a new source of tourism revenues that was later consolidated in 2001 with the classification of the Douro as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Original Story: Expresso / Lusa

Translation: Richard Turner