PRESIDENT JORGE Sampaio has called for the tourist industry in Portugal to be more competent and up-to-date. Addressing a tourism conference in Tróia, Setúbal, the President said: “We have to fight a tendency for short-term opportunism and chic-cleverness, which degrades the industry and lowers our credibility.”
He called for an end to the phenomenon of easy, quick and cheap profits, and said it was essential to think about the country’s territory with well-thought-out projects that would benefit Portugal long-term. “It’s about looking to the future as well as avoiding disasters,” he said during the conference, where he also handed out awards to 18 personalities in the tourism sector.
Among them was TAP’s chief executive Fernando Pinto, journalist, writer and businessman André Jordan and former secretaries of state for tourism, Luís Correia da Silva and Cabrita Neto.
In October, room occupancy in Algarve hotels shot up by 6.7 per cent, according to data released by the Algarve Hotel and Tourism Association, with Vilamoura and Quinta do Lago representing the greatest increases with an overall room occupancy of 69.8 per cent. The British continue to top the list of holiday-makers in the Algarve, followed by the Portuguese and the Germans.
