Industrial Tourism Route in Porto and Ave , Portugal
About this good practice
This practice is based on Identity and genuinity - Porto and Ave have a common industrial history but this is poorly known. The country is still perceived as essentially rural. This practice uses Porto tourism as a way of sharing the existence of an old and resilient industry and more than that, the presence of an industrious spirit, still alive in active units. It also answers a problem of common utility - Porto is a doorway to the region, but needs relief for its historical centre, Ave has the largest industrial concentration but lacks visibility. Together, Ave and Porto reach visibility for a genuine tourism product and capitalize, in a sustainable way, the large amounts of visitors to the region. Economical sustainability is assured by the 3 Million tourists arriving to the region last year, attracted by good facilities including an airport and a Cruises terminal, but also by the will of sharing identity. Industrial Tourism teaches how things were and are done, but also allows to understand the economic basis of the country. Porto and Ave have a number of units with historical and technical interest, some musealized, already forming the basis of a Heritage route. S. João da Madeira Industrial Circuit, in Porto’s region, leads the way with an established visitable group of units. The main stakeholders of the project are Porto Metropolitan Area, the regional board of the Culture Ministry, University of Minho, and the Coordinating Comission for the North of Portugal.
Resources needed
We needed 80.000 € to start eight anchor sites on each NUTS III (Porto and Ave). We are now moving to the training process for guides belonging to industrial communities. The training process involves 4 people as instructors and 32 comunitarian guides.
Evidence of success
Being a very recent project, its most relevant results are connected the rising relevance of industrial units of the region like for instance the recognition of S João da Madeira Industrial Circuits (in Porto) and the Lousado Railway Museum (in Ave) as ERIH Anchor Points, or the stimuli to open several other industrial museums during the last two years. On the search visibility for this endogenous resources we involved the largest European Network devoted to Industrial Heritage Tourism ( ERIH).
Potential for learning or transfer
Europe is the largest industrialized region in the world. From Cyprus to Norway and from Portugal to the Urals, Industry is always present. But we tend to ignore each other even within such a small space as the European Union. When a region full of history but ignored, is able to draw a strategy to relate itself to a doorway for knowledge sharing with visitors, that strategy can be an impulse for other regions to step out of the shadow and do de same. The solution tested here can be transferred to other regions where a doorway exists and has a genuine connection with an industrial region. Because of the fact that this is still an ongoing project transfers to other regions are also still ongoing, but partners like Granada already mentioned the will of including Industrial routes in their strategy. Other regions with specific industries around Porto, like NUTS III Tâmega e Sousa, are moving toward the creation of a similar project, focused on the furniture industry existing there.
Further information
Website
Good practice owner
You can contact the good practice owner below for more detailed information.
Comunidade Intermunicipal do Ave