THE AMOUNT of money that the Associação de Turismo do Algarve (ATA), the tourism association for the Algarve, has to spend on promotion this year has been cut by 25 per cent.
The budget announced in Lisbon by Hélder Martins, president of Região de Turismo do Algarve (RTA), the Algarve tourism board, which oversees the ATA, has been reduced from eight to six million euros.
The cut is principally due to the funding arrangements of the Instituto de Turismo de Portugal (ITP) for external promotion of the Algarve.
Of the 5.5 million euros it has allocated for the region, it has remitted only four million, retaining 1.5 million, which will be used to support ITP initiatives controlled in Lisbon.
The ATA will have four million from ITP and 2.5 million from RTA and private sponsors. Of this amount, six million is to be used for promotion and the rest for the association’s running costs.
The RTA is receiving an identical amount to last year, which is a little above seven million, of which four million will be used for internal promotion. Therefore, in total, 10 million will be spent on promoting the Algarve as a tourist destination: six million on promotion abroad and four million on the internal market in Portugal.
From the RTA budget, three million will be spent on the promotion of “sun and beach” and 18 per cent on the promotion of golf.
With regard to the results of 2006 in terms of tourism, RTA confirmed that between January and November, the number of overnight stays at official accommodation in the Algarve reached 13.5 million, 38.4 per cent of the national total. For the same period in 2005, this number was 13.3 million and the percentage of the national total was 39.6.
The total revenue was over 506 million euros for the period between January and November 2006, while in 2005, it was 475 million.
Do you have a view on this story? Email: [email protected]
