2025: A Year to Remember
As we reach the final stretch of another year, it is time to look back at what 2025 meant for Proactivetur. It was, without question, a year to remember — for many reasons.
We began the year by strengthening our already outstanding team with a new addition: biologist José Carvalho. Passionate about nature photography, especially birds, José is now one of our field guides and a growing specialist in nature conservation within our team.
2025 was also the year when our colleague Estelle returned, having become a mother for the second time. It is deeply rewarding to know that the stability and conditions offered by this small company allow our team members to plan their future and be happy. The same sense of change, though in a different direction, marked the path of Vanessa Flórido. Seeking to be closer to her family, Vanessa decided to pursue new professional paths and leave Proactivetur. She had been our resident artisan since 2018, trained within Project TASA in traditional plant-fibre weaving techniques. She was — and will continue to be — one of the most talented artisans in the Algarve. While we were saddened by her decision, we are immensely grateful for her work and wish her every success and happiness in her future projects.
2025 will also be remembered as an excellent tourism year. We delivered more than 550 programmes, including guided activities, workshops, and self-guided trips. We celebrated new international partnerships, welcomed new audiences, and significantly strengthened our role in offering authentic experiences in the Algarve. We also launched a new immersive tourism programme with a strong focus on traditional crafts, fully aligned with the new strategy for Project TASA.
Indeed, 2025 marked a strategic turning point for TASA, which in 2026 will see the closure of its shop in Loulé, bringing to an end 15 years of craft product development. Changing times and the need to reorient this valuable project are leading us down new paths, which we will reveal soon.
We delivered the 13th edition of the Ameixial Walking Festival, in partnership with Cooperativa QRER, and continued to coordinate the Algarve Walking Season, which now brings together five walking festivals across the region.
We joined the Portugal Outdoor Alliance, a national network of adventure tourism companies, through which we launched an innovative project to develop a tool to measure the sustainability performance of our tours, to be released in 2026.
For the third consecutive year, we were awarded a sustainability seal recognising our commitment to sustainability, granted by Turismo de Portugal under the Tourism 360º Programme.
Throughout the year, we participated in national and international conferences and talks, welcomed interns from local schools, supported non-governmental organisations in their environmental and social missions, and initiated new projects that will be presented at the right time.
The end of 2025 is marked by a new and significant commitment by Proactivetur to the region and its interior. We acquired a small rural property in Querença, within the locally protected area of Fonte da Benémola, where we will implement environmental and agroforestry regeneration projects, among others. This will be our special place — where responsible tourism, agriculture, nature observation, education, health and wellbeing, and community engagement come together.
It is a new adventure, perhaps unexpected for a tourism operator, but one that fully reflects our vision for the territory: it can only remain alive, preserved, and developed if we give sustained value back to it. This is what drives us. This is what we aim to do — as a team and with the community. For the territory.
Welcome, 2026!
