Lisbon, Oct. 15, 2025 (Lusa) - The commissioner-general for Portugal's participation in Expo 2025 Osaka, Joana Gomes Cardoso, said in an interview with Lusa on Wednesday that the results "exceeded expectations" and that there were even more Portuguese visitors than expected.
Expo 2025 kicked off on 13 April and ran until 13 October on the artificial island of Yumeshima, located on the coast of Osaka, Kansai, Japan.
In a telephone interview from Osaka, Joana Gomes Cardoso gave a "very positive" assessment of Portugal's participation over these six months.
"It exceeds all our expectations, all the indicators we had were surpassed, but at this stage I would even say that more than the numbers, it is the little stories that make the difference," continued the Commissioner-General.
On the last day of the exhibition, in particular, "- it's something that may not be so common in other countries, but which happens a lot in Japan, people express themselves a lot with little notes, with little messages - and our Pavilion received a flood of little notes, little letters, children who came to give us pins, with many thanks and saying that they really want to visit Portugal," she reports.
This "is not as objective as the numbers, but for me it is as important as or more important than the numbers, which speak for themselves," says Joana Gomes Cardoso.
The estimated number of visitors to the Portugal Pavilion was 1.2 million, but when the final tally was made, it was almost double that (2.3 million).
"Honestly, we thought we were being optimistic with 1.2 [million visitors]" in the six months of the event, she confesses.
And these "are also very realistic and not inflated figures, i.e. they don't even include the restaurant, which had queues from morning to night, or the temporary exhibition hall, which had direct access. These figures - 2.3 [million] are really just the people who queued and visited the pavilion from start to finish," reports the general commissioner.
The Portugal Pavilion was designed by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma to express the dynamics of the ocean, using 9,972 suspended cables weighing over 60 tonnes and recycled nets to create a perennial effect exposed to natural elements such as the sun and wind. Portugal participated in Expo Osaka with the theme ‘Ocean, Blue Dialogue’.
As for the origin of the visitors, most were from Japan.
"We also had very many Koreans," she says, noting that there is no reliable data because visitors were not asked about their nationality, as well as Chinese and Germans.
"And curiously, many more Portuguese than we imagined," adds Joana Gomes Cardoso.
This is because "we had Portuguese visitors every day", both at Easter and now in the last few days, "many groups, many Portuguese excursions who were visiting Japan for the first time and came to the Expo," she points out, noting that it was "very gratifying to meet so many Portuguese" who, in general, had a "very enthusiastic reaction" to the Portuguese Pavilion.
Although Portuguese citizens are "always the most demanding, with all the pavilions, this was also the experience of the other commissioners from other countries", in this case "I must say that the overall reception was always very positive from our visiting national audience", she shares.
In recent days, groups of 30 to 40 Portuguese people arrived every day, and sometimes two or three. There were times when we had, for example, 100 Portuguese people a day," says the general commissioner, sharing an anecdote.
One day, a group that arrived told us that [musician] Quim Barreiros was in another group - which was true, he was there - and then Quim Barreiros' group told us that [journalist] Dina Aguiar was there," she says, illustrating the diversity of people who visited the Portuguese pavilion.
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