“American owned but Portuguese inspired”

Co-founder and CEO of Portugal The Place, Colleen King-Showalter, told The Portugal News: “My husband, Clyde and I started the business together to really help people navigate a lot of the parts of moving to Portugal that are outside of the traditional roles of it, such as an attorney or a real estate agent.”

A Soft Landing

Portugal The Place clients can be relocated to a rural area, an urban setting or anything in between. “We support them through the whole process, it is usually a 9 to 12 months arc from the first time we meet with our clients and help them learn about different locations all the way to the day that we give them their keys and help them get settled in. We are also a resource so we will help you navigate purchasing a car, for example, or figuring out what insurance you need, moving your pet or even getting your children registered in school, whatever it takes to get you settled and have a soft landing.”

The Founders Story

Colleen and Clyde have a hospitality and travel background and have lived in Portugal for over two years, “For us, we came here on vacation in 2019 before the pandemic and we did the normal tourist things of visiting Porto and Lisbon. We have travelled the world but we have never had the experience of the warmth of the people and the destination capturing our imagination like Portugal.”

“When we moved, we knew we wanted some type of continuing business, my husband and I had thought about a hotel or doing something in hospitality but then as we started to learn about people that were struggling to find information outside the urban areas, we wanted to create a team that would be there for you and would be a base when you move to Portugal and helps you navigate it comfortably.”

Becoming a Client of Portugal The Place

When asked what it means to be a client of Portugal The Place, Colleen explained “Asides from the three core services which includes location scouting, where we help our clients see the destinations in Portugal, through the lens of living there, we assist with the rental scouting that qualifies for the visa and we also do property purchase scouting. We are not real estate agents; we help our clients to navigate the cultural differences and connect with professionals we have vetted to make sure they are getting a good experience.”

Investing into the Community

Most interestingly, Colleen shared that “Another piece we have been asked by our clients and we are passionate about is creating opportunities for clients to literally invest back into the community. We are starting to launch our first project, that we are going to partner with one of the cities on the Silver Coast to have people invest and volunteer and give back to the community.”

Adding, “This is something that Americans do really well and immigrants really want to do. We want to show that we can make that impact in a positive way because there has been a lot of concern about bringing a large international contingency to an area and what that does. We have worked with the city council in Alcobaça for example, with business owners there and we have had some fantastic feedback on the economic impact as well as talks on how we can we invest in a respectful way and we wish to expand this to other locations across Portugal.”

Colleen finally told The Portugal News: “We recognise that there is tension about the international community moving to Portugal which is why we are Portuguese company paying Portuguese tax. It is important to us to hire people on contract and pay them double the minimum wage so that we are doing everything we can to make an economic impact that is positive. Portugal is a beautiful country with amazing people but we need to be aware of how we impact that and maintain this as a beautiful place by also integrating our clients into the community respectfully.”

For more information, please visit Portugal the Place or alternatively to get in touch with their friendly team, please call +351 961 315 405 or email inquiries@portugaltheplace.com