TAP and Brasil strengthen Partnership

"During the BTL - Lisbon Tourism Fair, the leading fair in the sector in Portugal which took place last week, work meetings were scheduled between TAP and Brazilian authorities from the tourism sector, with the aim of following on with work that has been developed with good results both for Portugal and Brazil. To culminate the work carried out, Fernando Pinto and Luiz Mor met with the Brazilian Minister of Tourism and other important figures in the sector.

Within the scope of the TAP annual sales meeting with the presence of reps from all markets, a meeting was also held with Embratur during which those responsible at TAP and the Chairwoman of Embratur - Jeanine Pires and the Director of Tourism, Leisure & Incentives, had the opportunity to openly discuss, exchange mutual information and assess what the best joint actions and work initiatives to be developed are. This meeting represented an excellent opportunity to assess the results of the TAP/Embratur partnership and also to align future strategies and strengthen cooperation ties between the two. The synergies and benefits generated by this partnership are clearly visible both in terms of the increase in the number of Brazilian visitors that travel to Portugal or who choose our Country as a doorway to Europe, and also in the increase in the flow of tourists coming from some of the major tourist issuing markets from Europe to Brazil, benefitting from the advantages offered by the TAP network, the leading European airline company in flights in Brazil. During the presentation of the goals and priorities of Embratur’s action plan, Jeanine Pires spoke of the offer of integrated routes to Brazil with the purpose of winning over steadily more visitors and better corresponding to their different motivations, emphasizing within this context the importance of the TAP network. "TAP has eight different entrance ways to Brazil and this enables passengers for example to come in via Rio de Janeiro and leave via Recife, or arrive in Salvador and depart from Fortaleza or another city”, she said. "Let's create itineraries so that passengers can experiment the diversity of the Country, getting to know the Brazil beyond the sun and beaches”, she further added. Offering 67 flights a week from Lisbon and also from Porto and serving eight destinations in Brazil, TAP is hence a privileged partner in the intake and distribution of air traffic between Europe and South America, taking the maximum benefit from the advantages offered by the strategic geographic positioning of its hub in Lisbon at the crossroads between the two continents. With a total of eight million 738 thousand passengers transported in 2008, more than a million more than in the previous year, TAP thus witnessed the importance of Europe and Brazil - both strategic markets for national tourism reaffirmed within its operations' network as a whole, having registered transported traffic growth rates of the order of 20 percent on lines from Brazil and 13 percent in Europe."