An increasing amount of hotels are closing down in the Algarve for the winter and measures adopted by the Portuguese government to combat the problem just have not worked, various entities from the tourism sector told Lusa news agency.
Elidérico Viegas, president of the AHETA hotel and resorts association, explained that the tendency for winter lock-downs was becoming more and more common as – try as they do – the region’s various entities “have not been able to fight the most fragile weakness of the Algarve tourism – seasonality”.
And although Viegas praised the government’s attempt to instruct hotel workers by providing courses during the low-season, he said the plan hadn’t worked.
“The idea is positive but the measure leaves much to be desired. And that is why the expectations surrounding the measure were disappointing,” he told Lusa, explaining that ‘Formação Algarve’ “backfires as it subsidises the courses but obliges companies to pay taxes on the subsidies”.
Both Tiago Jacinto from the Sindicato da Hotelaria do Algarve (Hotel Syndicate of the Algarve) and António Goulart from the União de Sindicatos do Algarve (the union of Algarve Syndicates) agreed that more and more hotel units are closing down during this time of year.
Goulart also shared AHETA’s criticisms of ‘Formação Algarve’, calling it yet another measure “that is announced but from the start can be seen to bring little or no effect because its structure is wrong”.
