Professionals from different areas of the tourism sector are participating this week in a Proturga initiative to analyse and highlight the different routes of the Way of Saint James, Facendo Camiño. Within the framework of its project “O Teu Xacobeo”, Proturga has been developing since last November different conferences with professionals from the sector that serve as familiarisation trips to provide knowledge and improve the capacities of these professionals as future prescribers of the Way of Saint James.
After the conferences held around the English and Portuguese Way, this month of January is the turn for the Portuguese Way along the Coast, which will take place on January 16th through a program that will start in Baiona with a visit to the historical center and the Casa de la Navegación and then move on to neighboring Oia and enjoy its monastery. In the afternoon, the transfer will take place to the Portuguese town of Caminha, taking the ferry to A Guarda to walk later following the rhythms of the sea.
The objective is to see the richness and variety of the area as a complementary tourist offer for the walker and to be able to study a path that experienced a meteoric increase of pilgrims in the last years. To end the day, the participating tourism professionals, who have come from different backgrounds (accommodation, restaurants, travel agencies, tour guides, tourism technicians, tourism office staff and consultants, among others) will share their views, highlighting the strengths and also those aspects to be improved.
Until May, these familiarisation trips will continue in 10 sections of the 10 routes that make up the Way of Saint James. Galician tourism professionals will take part in these trips and will get to know in situ the star product of the community and analyse the state of the route and the resources and services on each of the routes within the framework of the O Teu Xacobeo programme, financed by the Xunta de Galicia.