Everybody is taken aback by this decision, residents, visitors and shop-owners alike.  Shop-owners especially are quite vocal about it because they claim that the idea is not only not lucrative but it is actually causing losses, alleging that restaurants are seeing less traffic adding that paid parking is also putting potential shoppers off.

This idea was challenged last year when a group of shop-owners from the up-market Quinta Shopping and the adjacent Bougainvillea Plaza shopping malls joined together and when to the mayor of Loule.

The meeting resulted in the idea of taxing parking spots being withdrawn much earlier than planned and the group thought that the concept was completely scrapped, apparently they thought wrong.

On the other side of the coin, the administrator of the municipal company which manages public parking has said that the idea of taxing the mall parking was meant to guarantee the availability of parking places for the more demanding clients on a permanent case.

He continued to explain that 75 percent of all parking is still free of charge for any client or employee at all times, even when considering the fact that there is demand for parking in the area which far exceeds the availability of existing spaces, so the system was implemented in order to guarantee some free parking spots – 85 spots – for those demanding clients who are also willing to pay in order to ensure they can park their cars as close to the entrance as possible.

Why has this not happened sooner? Well the protest was sparked by the decision of the Portuguese Government to not extend the exemption granted to residents beyond the end of September, even if by all accounts the tourism sector was on the whole expecting it.

Eliderico Viegas, a major representative of the Algarve tourism sector said that when it comes to these tolls there should be no discrimination between residents of the Algarve and those visiting, so they tolls should be suspended completely; further stating that the introduction of the tolls has shown to be an anti-tourism decision and thus against the interests of the entire region.

He backed up these claims by pointing out the fifty percent reduction in traffic on the A22 highway and a whopping twenty percent drop in the number of tourists coming from Spain, saying that these were enough reasons to eliminate the tolls immediately. The Algarve car rental industry and Faro airport transfers services has seen some problems as well.

Antonio Pina, the President of the Algarve Tourism Board, said that he too wasn’t surprised by the Government’s decision but also mentioned that it does threaten to be the ‘blow that would sink the Tourism Algarve ship’, pretty strong words indeed.

He continued to say that there is an urgent need to completely suspend the A22 tolls as well as oppose any and all attempt by the Government to either extend or withdraw any exemption for residents because this is an unacceptable discriminatory policy.

Will the 1^st of October protest combined with these harsh words from leading figures in the Algarve tourism sector sway the Government in any way? We have no way of knowing that, we’ll just keep an eye on what happens in the future of A22 toll and report on it.