Turismo de Portugal, I.P., the national tourist board of Portugal, announced the launch of a Simplified Chinese version of the country’s official tourism website visitportugal.com to coincide with the ongoing Shanghai Expo 2010.

According to Turismo de Portugal, this website is now available in ten different languages: Portuguese, Spanish, English, French, German, Dutch, Italian, Russian, Japanese and Simplified Chinese.

Turismo de Portugal said it decided to launch the Chinese website due to the potential of the Chinese outbound travel market, with its 1.3 billion inhabitants. In a statement, the board said it has paid more attention to China over the last two years, participating in tourism fairs like Beijing International Tourism Expo and China International Travel Mart 2010, which has put Portuguese hotels and tourism enterprises in contact with Chinese operators and agents.

Turismo de Portugal has a specific area in the Portuguese pavilion at the Shanghai Expo 2010, where visitors can discover the diversity and quality of Portugal’s tourism spots, and the Chinese version of its official website shows a promotional film on Portugal.