Tourist bookings for the month of September in the Algarve increased by about 13 percent, with the British market “having a substantially large weight”, a leader of the Portuguese Hotel Association (AHP) told Lusa today.
“We went from 50% to 63% in three days, which means an increase of around 13%. Although it is not just an increase in the British market, it has a substantial weight ”, João Soares, director of AHP in the Algarve, told Lusa.
In the opinion of João Soares, also director of Hotel Dom José, in Quarteira (Loulé), “in the same way that the British market has infected other markets negatively, now it ends up contaminating positively, because when it comes to the Algarve it ends up bringing confidence to others Northern European countries and markets ”.
The regional director of the association, which represents more than 60% of national hoteliers, said that after the reopening of the air corridor with the United Kingdom, businessmen are waiting for Ireland to make the same decision.
“As the Irish were our second market in the mid / low season, it was very important that they made the same decision as the UK,” he said.
João Soares believes that there will be a significant increase in reserves in the British market for the month of September: I have no doubt that this could happen, because Spain is closed and the British is a people who need to travel, they need to leave ”.
“It is not an increase that solves the region’s problems, of course, because the majority of hotels are between 50% and 70% below last year, but it will certainly help to mitigate, at least, the closing of hotels in September extending this decision to October or November ”, he stressed.
According to João Soares, prices this year in the Algarve “are and will remain below the values practiced in previous years, due to low occupancy”, maintaining the rates that were in force at the date of the United Kingdom’s decision to exempt quarantine from travelers from Portugal.
“The price only increases when the demand is higher than the supply and since there is no demand higher than the supply and availability that existed, prices have not increased nor will they increase and we will continue to have prices much lower than those of 2019”, he concluded.
On August 19, the British Government included Portugal on the list of countries with “travel corridors” for England whose passengers are exempt from fulfilling a two-week quarantine imposed due to the covid-19 pandemic, a measure that took effect last Saturday.
On the contrary, Croatia, Austria and the island of Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean have been removed from the list due to the increasing number of infections, as has France, the Netherlands, Monaco, Malta, the Turks and Caicos Islands and Aruba, and previously with Belgium, Andorra, Bahamas, Spain and Luxembourg.
The United Kingdom introduced the need for 14 days of self-isolation for all people arriving from the UK to foreign countries on June 8 to avoid importing infections, but a month later exempted some 70 countries and territories, considered to be of low risk.
The quarantine exemption is accompanied by the change in the advice of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MNE) against non-essential travel to those destinations, which is important for the purpose of travel insurance.
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