PORTUGAL A Country-Brand in Fashion

“If you want to visit the country of the European champions, visit Portugal”. The sentence belongs to José Mourinho, the Portuguese manager who has twice won the European Champion’s League, with FC Porto (2004) and Inter Milan (2010). The writing, accompanied by a photo in his pyjamas with a fully stretched Portugal scarf, is an immortal classic on the Instagram page of the manager who now sits in the Manchester United dugout. It all happened following the Euro 2016 final. Portugal, through football, was showing off to the world. Ronaldo, who else, had long since been a flag carrier for the “Made in Portugal” brand. However, on this day, and even more so for it being in France, Portugal was the stumbling block for a country whose inhabitants are increasingly letting themselves be won over by the homeland of the European champions.

For a long time, the Algarve region has been known as a paradise for retirees from Northern Europe, especially attracting the British. However, in more recent years, French, Brazilians, Chinese and other nationalities, in active and productive ages, have swelled the ranks of those wishing to live and, above all, to work in Portugal.Taking advantage of the perfect storm in the property market brought about by legislative changes – the Rental and Leasing Laws and the granting of Gold, fast-track Visas -, there have been many setting up new residences with a particular focus on the historical centres of the major cities. From pensioners sitting on hefty retirement sums through to the stars of music, cinema and sport, from Eric Cantona to Michael Fassbender, Mónica Belluci to Madonna are some of the known examples among the many others who, while remaining anonymous, have chosen Portugal.

In recent years, there has been a succession of tourism awards. From international organisations and the media, specialist and generalist, across various languages, Portugal is the country getting talked and written about. Every single day. And every day seems to set new records for the number of arrivals by land, air and sea. However, not only are there persons famous to a greater or lesser extent seeking to own a piece of the country or to spend their holidays here, there are also companies (Mercedes, Bosh and Vestas), major international conferences (Web Summit) and sporting events (Volvo Ocean Race) setting down roots in the national territory and choosing Portugal to invest their money and knowledge in. Education plays a crucial role in this promotion and universities such as Católica-Lisbon and the Nova SBE figure high in the world ranking for executive training programs according to the Financial Times table. And one in nine university students are international arrivals.

Every day, there appears a new start-up or another member of a new incubator reflecting just how ‘hot’ entrepreneurship currently is. And there are already purpose tailored environments. Whenever in the Hub Criativo e Empreendedor – which is set up to integrate variable national and international incubators, artistic residences, creators and creatives, in Lisbon’s Zona do Beato, as well as PT Enter, also in Lisbon at Cais do Sodré, which serves as the main international office of Web Summit before the Paddy Cosgrave led team moves to Beato. And what are the reasons for all of this world attention? Safety, political stability, qualified staff, infrastructures, technology, a good climate and the traditions of providing a warm welcome are at the top of the lists for choosing Portugal.

“Up until quite recently, the Portugal brand did not yet qualify as a brand-nation”, explained Ana Paula Cruz, lecturer at IPAM. Adding that “what qualifies a country as a credibility enhancing origin of other brands is when the country itself becomes a brand”, the lecturer accepts that “while internally, we have a tendency to undermine our “Portugal” brand, outside of the country the motives for leveraging us to the status of a brand have increased”. Having undergone a long and rigorous process of external intervention and financial aid, in more recent years Portugal has headed down a path that sheds the image of “junk” or as the poor relation of Europe. Politically, the “Gerigonça” (dodgy contraption), the name that became nationally and internationally known for the current parliamentary alliance between the Socialist Party and other parties further to the left, which overcame international mistrust and sailed over the work done by the previous government to today become a synonym for trust and confidence: both in the markets and in international institutions. And while on the matter of politics, a former prime minister returned to the highest level of an international organisation. António Guterres took over the role of the United Nations Secretary General just as Durão Barroso completed ten years at the head of the European Commission.

May 2017, almost one year on from the European football championship and a century after the apparitions of Fátima, Pope Francis, one of the world’s most influential leaders, visited Portugal and Fátima in order to canonise the two martyr saints, Francisco and Jacinta. On the same day, in Kiev, in Ukraine, Salvador Sobral with “Amar pelos dois” won the Eurovision Song Contest, a festival accompanied live by 200 million viewers across 42 countries. And thus the name of Portugal again echoed around the four corners of the world. This country is most definitely in fashion.

On 10 June 2016, Portugal sealed the European Football Championship title. On this day, that victory and the Mourinho sentence, written in the privacy of his own home, might easily be assumed to be some sentence written as part of any Portugal Tourism campaign. Indeed, it would henceforth be transformed into a slogan banner for presidential committees and state visits, accompanying any roadshow of business leaders or serving as a soundbite for any presentation letter written as part of any public relations or communications campaign undertaken by whoever the national dignitary, whether in the political, diplomatic or economic fields.

Cristiano Ronaldo is a name that opens doors. Being Portuguese is a synonym of being one of ten million compatriots and fellow Madeirans, and Ronaldo, the best player in the world, in the time of individual and collective celebrations never forgets to bring along his two flags: for the Quinas national team and for the island of Madeira.

Leonardo Jardim, champion in France with Monaco, and Mourinho help the party along. However, the national sporting promotion reaches further than eleven men against eleven men and Ronaldo. With the ball at their feet, the national female team for the first time made the final phase of a European Championship and the titles of best in the world in beach football (Madjer) and futsal (Ricardinho) also help, and in what fashion, to promote the country. In other fields, whether athletics (Patrícia Mamona) or surfing (Frederico Morais), the Portuguese flag also gets a showing here, there and everywhere.

Portugal “exports” sporting talent and attracts sporting events.

The Volvo Ocean Race is one good example. The Trans-Atlantic yachting regatta made a stopover in Lisbon. This event does not end with a few boats passing by. The intention is to establish an umbilical relationship with Lisbon, more precisely with the Docapesca facilities in Pedrouços. This was the location chosen by the race management that toured the world to install their “Boatyard’, a centre for nautical repairs and where the competing vessels are subject to a ‘refit’, – so as to ensure they can return to competition at the highest possible level in the 13th edition of the regatta. In parallel, there is a proposal on the table for a 10-year project that would see naval engineering companies develop their know-how within a sailing cluster developed in this port that opens out to the Atlantic as is the case with the Portuguese capital.

Guterres in the UN and political stability in Portugal

After having teetered into bankruptcy, which required staving off with an IMF loan of €76 billion, following “colossal” increases in taxes and wage cuts coupled with rampant unemployment, five years later, the national economy grew at 2.8%, the fastest pace in over a decade, above the European average and getting Portugal off the blacklist of countries clocking up excessive deficits. And it has already paid 60% of that IMF loan. Portugal is experiencing a period of political stability. At the government and parliamentary level, in alignment with the presidency in the Palace of Belém, who has shown “affection” as he nurtured this same stability.

Externally, the preponderant event came with the election of the first Portuguese citizen to the role of United Nations Secretary General in a single candidacy that secured the highest position in that organisation. In an era with so much talk of building “walls” and what constitutes an effective “Brexit”, the political stability ongoing in Portugal is, in its own right, one of the country’s trump cards. Contrary to other countries, Portugal has its doors very much open.

Indeed, it is exactly through Portugal that Chinese companies and citizens have moved into the Old Continent, investing in sectors such as energy, insurance and healthcare. China Three Gorges State Grid and FOSUN, entered in the era of the “Troika”, and many others were to follow as a living example of how investments are seeking out Portugal for technologically agile companies capable of serving as the bridging point out to the Portuguese speaking world, especially Angola, Mozambique and Brazil. This foreign investment, which has continued to break records for the last two decades, does not trace its origins to just one country. The German Mercedes-Benz is opening an innovative competences centre designed to deliver digital marketing products and technological solutions for the group worldwide. The Digital Delivery Hub is the second centre of intelligence that Mercedes- Benz is opening nationally.

“Lisbon is becoming a place to be in the digital world”, affirmed Sabine Scheunert, vice-president of Digital & IT Marketing/Brand Sales, during the presentation of an event that counted on the presence of the Prime Minister, António Costa, and the President of Lisbon Municipal Council, Fernando Medina. “Our medium term vision for Portugal precisely identifies the need to invest in qualifications and in innovation”, António Costa stated before highlighting the need for Portugal to be a “country open to foreign investment, the attraction of talents, the crossroads of cultures”. Yet another example, Bosh Car Multimedia signed a 5-year contract for all Renault and Nissan models. The Braga unit of the German company is thus supplying navigation and entertainment systems to all vehicles produced by these two brands in a project with a huge scale and representing some €1.3 billion to the Bosch balance sheet in Portugal. All of this innovation has not escaped the eyes of Elon Musk. Portugal is one of the sites under discussion for a future Tesla factory (GigaFactory).

Education and entrepreneurship are on the move

The Web Summit set foot in Portugal for the first time last October. After seven years in Dublin, Ireland, Lisbon and Portugal become the home of this technological conference and start-ups gathering for three years.

This is a smaller event than any of the major summer music festivals that are held in Portugal but that promises to make a lot of noise. It touched down in Lisbon at a time when the Portuguese capital is in fashion in tourism terms and at a time when the entrepreneurial ecosystem of the city has taken on a relevance within the European and global panoramas. Lisbon today has hundreds of start-ups, incubators, ‘fablabs’, co-working facilities and investors. António Costa, current prime minister and former president of Lisbon Municipal Council and João Vasconcelos, former State Secretary for Industry and founder of the Startup Lisboa incubator, were the key faces of this transformation of Lisbon into a “start-up city”.

However, it is not just the capital registering all of this buzz. Startup Portugal launched last year in a campaign to ensure that the country becomes more than another Berlin or Silicon Valley. Beyond entrepreneurship, Portugal has invested in knowledge. The universities in Minho, Aveiro, Oporto, Lisbon or the Algarve, are internationally recognised for their excellence of teaching. Nova SBE, for example, is building a University Campus in Carcavelos that strives to stand out as a genuine hub interconnecting various languages and levels of knowledge. Furthermore, the European University, part of the Laureate Group, is investing in a new campus in Lisbon, enabling it to expand its numbers of both Portuguese and international students and drive the expansion of the academic model backed by this University that prepares professionals for a now global world. There are also the diverse centres of research and innovation (Champalimaud Foundation or Biocant) dotted around the country with all of their state-of-the-art researchers.

Tourism growing at 10% per year

“In recent years, we have moved to overcome the limited perspective that we formerly held of ourselves: we are a lot more than a country full of monuments and history and still more so than just a place for beach tourism or even religious visits”, states IPAM’s Ana Paula Cruz. We are, yes indeed, much more. Nevertheless, the numbers still  also show that there are many out there wanting to come and visit. Tourism has grown by over two digits for the last four years in Lisbon, Oporto and the archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira, markets that exploded in the wake of airline traffic liberalisation. From international magazines and newspapers, “The Guardian” to the “Huffington Post”, taking in “Condé Nast Traveller”, “Lonely Planet” and organisations such as the WCCT – World Travel Tourism Council, the country has picked up an entire series of prizes. Best golf destination, best city break, best beaches, best European destination, best three-day break, for its gastronomy, cities and sites, their history, there has been a boundless flow of international recognition. To surf this wave, Portugal Tourism has recently launched an advertising campaign to win over still more international tourists. “Can’t skip Portugal” is the slogan that accompanies four videos with investment in the region of €20 million.

Sporting, cinema and music celebrities purchase studio-flats with views over the country

With the Gold Visas program (destined for those purchasing property and/or investing in job creation or the share capital of already existing companies), there have been many international arrivals investing in property in Portugal. The Chinese took the first steps but were swiftly followed by the French and the Brazilians who entered the field to take advantage of all the fiscal benefits available for investment with some also duly gaining access to a European passport. Leveraging this perfect storm in the property sector, through the introduction of legislative alterations enabling the purchase and rehabilitation of properties, especially in historical city centres, private savings and international funds have come searching for Portugal. That Portugal was an “el dorado” for some wealthy retirees was nothing new. However, more than some “new Florida”, Portugal todays stands as a destination of preference for renowned names from the most varied sectors, from music to cinema alongside names from the world of sport, they have all been buying up their spaces. Eric Cantona, the former French international footballer, set the fashion in revealing that he spent most of the year in Lisbon. Michael Fassbender, the German actor followed suit and bought a luxury apartment in Portugal. Madonna, who caused a stir on social networks with her visit to Lisbon, has ended up buying a house and assuming that she comes to stay will become the latest international star to move to Portugal.

Portugal: a nation-brand and in fashion?

According to Ana Paula Cruz, the categories for the most common countries divide them into Nation-Status (values, quality of life and business potential) and Nations-Experience (perceptions more closely related with experiences of the culture and heritage, tourism and credibility as an origin (the much vaunted ‘made in’)). “The Nation-Brand exceeds this level of perceptions normally across the majority of these two areas”, she emphasises. Questioning the IPAM lecturer as to what distinguishes Portugal that has now amounted it to not only becoming a Nation-Brand but also in fashion, Ana Paula Cruz concludes: “Many factors that in reality exceed both of these classifications are at the base. From the outset, the work of the two main cities in becoming destinations not merely as tourist sites but also for business and culture”. Then, there comes the “fundamental highlight by a broad number of global personalities from politics, science, culture and sport” as well as “the scientific conquests” or “the technological levels of telecommunications, banking and state service infrastructures”.