• A new international project, said the provincial president, Manuel Baltar, “to disseminate our heritage, when in times of pandemic and post-pandemic like these, people are looking for well-being, disconnection and nature, values that we have in the province of Ourense and Portugal”.
• A promotional bus will travel more than 1,500 kilometres and will visit more than 25 points during the next ten days, incorporating as novelties a digital tourism office and the participation of university students with scholarships in the Erasmus Rural plan.

Ourense, 8 September 2021.- The Provincial Council of Ourense today launched an initiative to promote tourism in the cross-border territory Ourense-North Portugal, which, under the name “Raia Termal en route”, will promote the values and resources of this area through a promotional bus that will travel more than 1,500 kilometres and will visit more than 25 points during the next ten days, incorporating as novelties a digital tourism office and the participation of university students with scholarships in the “Erasmus Rural” plan. A new international project, said the president of the Provincial Council, Manuel Baltar, “to disseminate our heritage, when in times of pandemic and post-pandemic like these, people are looking for well-being, disconnection and nature, values that we have in the province of Ourense and Portugal”.

In the framework of the “Raia Termal” programme, financed by the European FEDER funds through the Interreg programme, “the bus that starts today from Ourense will allow us to value the territory and its thermal heritage – added Baltar – delving into the historical, cultural, social and natural links that we have between Ourense and Portugal as brother towns”. In this sense, he was enough, the bus will not only visit the five municipalities of the province and northern Portugal that integrate the European programme – Lobios, Bande, Muíños, Cortegada, Melgaço and Terras de Bato – “but will travel to other important capitals such as Puerto, Vigo, A Coruña or Santiago de Compostela”. The tour will end in Ourense, coinciding with the celebration of the Termatalia fair on 16 and 17 September.

The provincial president also highlighted another of the novelties that includes this initiative, such as the participation of the twenty university graduates who were granted with the Erasmus Rural bags, “aimed at young people to study and disseminate our territory and its resources reinforcing the attention to tourists, an initiative that is a direct consequence of another project financed by the European Social Fund, the EmpredOU programme, so that more than one hundred young men and women under 35 years launched projects of self-employment or entrepreneurship in their municipality of residence, helping to fix population, employment and wealth in the rural areas”.

“Raia Termal en route” incorporates a second novelty: a digital tourist office that through QR codes will allow to download from a map to a collection of postcards with the most important tourist resources of the territory, through promotional videos or even a comic set in the cross-border municipalities that make up the project. However, the most important digital element lies in the possibility of making it easier for spas, companies and local administrations to digitally transform their offer, allowing travellers to book and buy tourist services in the cross-border area online.

The Raia Termal project, which will be present at upcoming trade fairs in the sector, aims to enhance the value of natural areas and promote quality national and international thermal tourism in the areas related to leisure, health and heritage, favouring the economic activity of the neighbouring towns of Ourense and northern Portugal. Co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through the Interreg Programme, in addition to the aforementioned municipalities also participate as partners the Diputación de Ourense and the Confederación Hidrográfica Miño-Sil.

Source: Depo Ourense