Portugal bets on Web Summit Lisbon for ten more years

  • ECO News
  • 27 July 2018

The government and Web Summit's leadership are working to extend their partnership. On the table of negotiations, there's a ten-year deal that will bring the tech conference to Lisbon until 2028.

The deal, that is to be made on a five by five year period, will bring the world’s leading tech summit to the Portuguese capital. However, Paddy Cosgrove is still analyzing other offers and going through the possibility of a “deal-break” happening, as reported by ECO sources.

Nothing is official as of yet, and according to Cosgrove, a deal-breaker might always surge (given that on the table there is an interesting offer from Spain). “We have to wait for the deal to be signed for the deal to be official”, an ECO source reported, adding that “Cosgrove has many other offers on the table”.

Portugal wants to maintain the tech conference in Lisbon for at least five years, in line with the government’s Startup Portugal + plans, which envision growth in this sector for the country. These government’s ambitious proposals should boost the economy and stimulate entrepreneurship.

For the Portuguese prime-minister, Costa, the idea is to stamp Portugal’s image to the Web Summit for good, a strategy that strengthens the country’s branding.

This step will cost him €1,3m per year, to be withdrawn from the Tourism of Portugal and Lisbon’s City Hall public funds. 

Who else is trying to become Web Summit’s winning venue?

The Spanish Industry, Commerce and Tourism ministery announced that it has been trying to attract the Web Summit organizers towards choosing one of their cities to become the new event venue. Competing for the lead nationally they have Bilbao, Madrid, and Valencia. 

According to the Portuguese news agency, Lusa, these cities are competing against London, Paris, Berlin, Dubai, Hamburg and Munich (besides Lisbon, evidently).

ECO tried to contact both the Web Summit and the economy minister, but all we gathered from the tech conference organizers was that “the negotiations are still ongoing”. Caldeira Cabral did not answer our questions so far.