September 29, 2018 TnH Global 0

Portuguese Hotels Association to launch online booking portal to welcome international visitors

The Hotel Association of Portugal (AHP) is launching an online platform to help tourists from around the world book accommodation in the country simply, securely and directly, following comprehensive research that revealed a lack of online effective accessibility for Portuguese hospitality venues.

The CLICK2PORTUGAL.com initiative aims to bring Portuguese hospitality to the next level, allowing prospective tourists to make straightforward, secure online reservations, with direct bookings via CLICK2PORTUGAL.com also providing best price and other exclusive benefits for its users.

AHP, which represents the majority of the hotel accommodation available in Portugal, conducted extensive research around hotels’ digital representation, which revealed more than a third of Portuguese hotels had no direct online booking capability.

Following this discovery, the CLICK2PORTUGAL.com initiative has been created, with Government backing, and is a nationwide enterprise open to all Portuguese hotels that looks to boost their visibility to international travellers.

Raul Martins of AHP, said, “This is an important step for our industry. Compared to many other European countries, Portugal will be one step ahead. Many hotels either don’t yet have an appropriate online presence, have no direct booking capability, or no translation function – all of which serves to limit their accessibility to tourists. The new CLICK2PORTUGAL.com portal looks to plug that gap, providing the opportunity for all hotels to engage with international travellers, while properly showcasing their offering and helping to make Portugal a much more accessible country.”

AHP carried out a comprehensive study last year exploring the current digital situation of the Portuguese hospitality industry, which involved the analysis of more than 1,500 hotels. The research found that over a third of hotels had no effective online presence or only had a very basic presence with no option for direct online booking.

The CLICK2PORTUGAL.com initiative is being launched in a bid to improve the digital offering of Portuguese hospitality venues, providing a boost to the country’s tourism industry. As part of their CLICK2PORTUGAL.com listing, hotels can include representative video, high-resolution photography and translation into 4 languages – English, Spanish, French and German – as well as recommended points of interest selected by the hotels.

Raul Martins concluded, “The lack of appropriate online representation is a huge stumbling block to those visiting from abroad to book direct and guarantee the best rates. With CLICK2PORTUGAL.com we are hoping to vastly boost the visibility of hotels, allowing guests to get a good understanding of what they’re getting when booking, while also allowing hoteliers to properly showcase the quality of their offering.”

CLICK2PORTUGAL.com officially goes live on the 9^th October 2018 and already includes 300 hotels, with more to be added as the initiative continues to spread throughout the country.