Sent at 2016-01-19 | Tourism

The number of tourists who sought information about Ribeira Grande at the municipality's Tourist Office, located in the city centre, grew by more than fifty percent (from 2014 to 2015). Over the past year, 7,037 visits were recorded, of tourists requesting various clarifications.

That is, the year 2015 was the best in comparison with recent years (7,037 in 2015; 4,739 in 2014; 4,671 in 2013; 3,949 in 2012; 3,682 in 2011 and 3,127 in 2010), a corollary of the investment made by local authorities in promoting the municipality.

The information sought by tourists was essentially related to places of interest to visit, the best itineraries to ensure an optimal use of the time available to them, where to eat and where to sleep. Demand for hiking trails also recorded a sharp increase.

In fact, hiking has clearly been one of the focuses of the current city council, chaired by Alexandre Gaudêncio, which has opened three hiking trails in the municipality within one year. The latest to be inaugurated was the Barquinha trail, which extends the Caldeira Velha thermal spring and downhill/Bandeirinha routes.

With regard to the nationality of visiting tourists, it is diverse, including more than a dozen different origins and showing a clear increase in tourists coming from Mainland Portugal, as well as Germans, Spaniards, Americans and Canadians, the latter including many emigrants who visited Ribeira Grande last summer.