The official, who was speaking on the panel “How to attract professionals to Tourism”, during the VI Portuguese Tourism Summit, promoted in Lisbon, within the scope of World Tourism Day, highlighted that this “was the sector that lost the most jobs during the pandemic”. 100,000 workers were lost over this period and while the sector has recovered 40,000 workers, there is still a gaping hole of 60,000 to fill.

Ana Mendes Godinho, who knows this sector well, stressed that “tourism needs people, the world of work is increasingly open in Europe, and the pandemic has also shaken everyone in a seismic way, even from the point of view of worker motivations, that are different today”, and recalled that “tourism competes not only with other activities, but also with jobs in other countries”.

Thus, the Minister of Labour and Social Solidarity emphasises that the “big challenge is to attract our young people to work in tourism, but also to open the job market to those who come from outside”.