According to the Tourism Board, the indicators are very positive in relation to the upcoming tourist season, especially when looking at the hotels’ preliminary spread sheets.

Desiderio Silva – the head of the regional Tourism Board – mentioned that there are units that are expecting their occupation rates until September or October to be much higher than what they initially predicted.

Speaking at the presentation of the Algarve Tourism Memorandum – a document lsiting various proposals as to how tourism can be improved within the region of the Algarve, Mr. Silva mentioned that this year both the French and the German markets have picked up after dropping in the number of tourists coming to Algarve in the past few years.

According to his estimations, the Algarve will most likely see more visitors from neighboring Spain as well, because due to the economic hardships they’ll opt for closer holiday destinations, and there are none closer than Portugal of course.

It is expected that more residents from Galicia and the Spanish Estremadura would more likely visit the Algave than those from actually neighboring Andalucia because they won’t have to pay any tolls on the motorways as opposed to the tolls required to get on the A22/Via do Infante.

The Algarve Tourist Memorandum features proposals based around the five pillars of air accessibility, touristic promotion, tax competitiveness, tourist products and the modernization of the destination as a whole.

We’ll just have to wait and see if these predictions actually come to fruition.

The Autoridade de Seguranca Alimetnar e Economica – ASEA – has said in a statement that they’ve started inspecting holiday accommodations in the Algarve region, with the aim of clamping down on privately owned apartments and villas that are being let for holidaying purposes without them being licensed under the Alojamento Local – Local Lodging – regime.

According to Decree-Law nr.39/2008 of March 7, you have to obtain a license to rent a private property on a temporary basis and be considered an ‘Alojamento Local’ unit. The ASAE’s mission is to inspect private properties that are being used for such purposes to make sure that they comply with this law.

The law also stipulates a list of requirements, which this type of establishments must comply with, like hygiene and safety standards.

This move has the double purpose of both protecting unknowing tourists from renting sub-par accommodations and then not having a great Algarve experience, as well as a source of extra and much-needed income to the government.

Ever since the 2008 legislation, the procedure for registering and licensing a property for temporary/holiday rentals has been considerably simplified, but there is still an issue with people’s awareness of this fact. The process itself is a rather easy and straightforward one, according to lawyers, but there might be some confusion in regards to it because of ‘hearsay culture’.

Property owners  in the Algarve can expect to be visited by council technicians following an application for their ‘Alojamento Local’ status; non-compliance with the legislation will result in the cancellation of the application and heavy fines starting at 2,500 euros and going up to 45,000.