Is it possible to sketch a country? Turismo de Portugal thought so and created the Sketch Tour Portugal project. This Thursday, the jury of the CETT Alimara Barcelona Awards recognised the initiative by awarding it the Through Experiences prize.
The 38
th edition of the
CETT Alimara Barcelona Awards rewarded the projects that, in the last year, presented the most innovative vision in the fields of experimentation, digitalisation, sustainability and applied research in the tourism, hotel business and gastronomy sectors. One of these awards, given by CETT - the reference university centre for tourism, hotel business and gastronomy of the University of Barcelona, recognised the Sketch Tour Portugal project, an initiative of Turismo de Portugal in partnership with Urban Sketchers Portugal, a non-profit organisation dedicated to the dissemination of a global community of artists who draw and illustrate places.
The first moment of the
Sketch Tour Portugal happened already in 2018, having gathered 24 national and international sketchers in 7 tours, one for each region. In a second moment, called
Sketch Tour Reload, 10 more tours took place. For one year, 20 national and international sketchers and 11 Portuguese-speaking writers travelled the destination and produced content for the project dedicated to current topics such as sustainability and slow tourism, showing how a destination can be experienced in different ways and through different perspectives.
The main results were a book, published in several languages, an international travelling transmedia exhibition, a website, a sound library and 11 webisodes. The Sketch Tour Portugal Reload was a real team project, managed by more than 90 people in different territories and subjects, contributing to a diverse and high quality final product that has already motivated its inclusion in school Geography, Art and Portuguese Language programmes from the 9th to the 12th grade. The book Sketchtour Portugal is a real sales success and has been present at several important literary fairs such as the São Paulo Book Fair and the Carnet de Voyages Festival.
This initiative helped to increase the artistic value of drawing in loco, with the artists having an immersive experience in places that would probably have gone unnoticed.
