Algarve hotels closing down for the winter
Despite the very active campaign, and the measures adopted by the Portuguese
government, which has started this year, to keep Algarve hotels open during the winter it
appears that an increasing number of hotels will still be closing down for the winter.
Various tourism sector industries including the president of the AHETA hotel and resorts
association – Eliderico Viegas – have explained that winter hotel lock-downs are starting
to increase in number because the various entities have not been able to fight the Algarve’s
biggest weakness to its tourist, its seasonality.
He did however praise the government’s attempt at stemming these temporary close
downs by providing courses to instruct hotel workers during the low-season, but at least
for the time being this plan has not worked.
He said that the idea is indeed positive but the measures still leave much to be desired. This means
that the expectations surrounding the measures were disappointing as well because they backfire.
The measure subsidizes the courses while at the same time obliging companies to pay taxes on said
subsidies.
Representatives from both the Sindicato da Hotelaria do Algarve – Hotel Syndicate of the Algarve – as
well as the Uniao de Sindicatos do Algarve – the union of Algarve Syndicates – agree that an increasing
number of hotels will be closing down during this time of the year.
Antonio Goulart – union of Algarve Syndicates representative – has joined in the overall criticism of
the ‘Formacao Algarve’ measure, calling it a measure that had little or no effect because it wasn’t
structured correctly.
This year appears to have been a dud from this point of view, even though the winter is barely really
getting started in the rest of Europe and this means that more hotels will close down their business in
the following weeks, we’ll just have to see what next year’s measures will be.
