Challenges and Solutions for future tourism | Position Portugal as one of the most competitive and sustainable tourist destinations in the world

ISQ recently organized, with the support of Turismo de Portugal, a national debate on sustainability in the tourism sector. This event, which took place at Estufa Fria in Lisbon, aimed to present environmental and energy efficiency solutions to position Portugal as one of the most competitive and sustainable tourist destinations in the world. Under the motto Towards the Sustainable Tourism Industry "we present concrete sustainability solutions for the Tourism sector so that this industry is at the forefront of concerns about sustainable development and new procedures in business models and operations," said Pedro Matias, President of ISQ. To this end, "we are involved in the presence of several players in the national and international tourism industry who have shared success stories and with the energy efficiency, environmental and environmental monitoring solutions of the ISQ Group and our subsidiaries such as DBWave or Sondar." It is intended that this debate will allow "to point out solutions aimed at meeting the indicators related to environmental and energy sustainability, aligned with the Tourism Strategy 2027", added the President of ISQ. The event had a permanent exhibition space of companies, taking place simultaneously throughout the day thematic sessions on Energy and Environmental Efficiency, Social Sustainability, Financial Support Instruments and Competitive Advantage of Certification, and it was possible to intervene the public with questions to speakers. The President of Tourism of Portugal, Luís Araújo stressed in this regard that "Affirming Portugal as a sustainable, innovative and competitive destination, based on a cohesive territory and where work and talent are valued, is a purpose of the whole sector. But its implementation has only been possible with the incorporation that companies have made of solutions, methods and tools that make their processes more efficient from the point of view of the use of resources. And this is precisely the objective of the conference: to promote the sharing of knowledge about good sustainability practices in tourism and, above all, the meeting between holders of sustainability-related solutions and tourism companies, enhancing the adoption capacity of the latter of practices that, overall, contribute to achieving the objectives of the Tourism Strategy 2027 ." ISQ has energy sustainability solutions for the tourism sector that can help in the planning and innovation of tourism activity, providing service to businesses and organizations. Among them, the EETUR project – Energy Efficiency in Tourism Enterprises of the Algarve Region – which has been promoting the transfer of scientific and technological knowledge in the area of energy efficiency and renewable energies in tourism enterprises; the energy efficiency plan implemented at Corinthia Hotel Lisbon – considered the best project in Europe, by the use of tailor-made private engineering solutions, which allowed to achieve in the first six months a reduction in energy consumption of more than 25% (corresponding to 600,000 kWh and 290 tons of CO2); and, more recently, the "Manual of Energy Audits in Industry", developed for ADENE – which aims to contribute to the improvement of the energy performance of the industrial fabric Portuguese, on the road to environmental and economic sustainability.