The old corvette “Oliveira e Carmo” will be sunk on Saturday, October 27th, and the ocean patrol ship “Zambezi” a week later, on November 3rd. If sea conditions permit, of course.
The official dates for the creation of the artificial reef for underwater tourism promoted by the Ocean Revival project, two miles off Prainha (Portimão), were announced this Wednesday, in front of around four dozen tourist entrepreneurs in the Algarve.
The Ocean Revival project was presented in a session at the café-concert at the Teatro Municipal de Portimão by its main mentor, Luís Sá Couto. The very day of the immersion of the first of the old ships of the Portuguese Navy will be, he guaranteed, «a very interesting day for hoteliers and maritime-tourists».
«We are preparing an event around these sinkings», revealed Luís Sá Couto, noting that a hotel is being chosen from which the operation can be seen, which takes place just two miles from the coast. But trips to the area can also be promoted (guaranteeing half a mile of safety distance in relation to the exact location of the sinking), in maritime-tourist vessels. «On this first day, there is a lot of interesting things that can be enjoyed by hoteliers and sea-tourists».
Luís Sá Couto, owner of the Subnauta diving center and president of the Musubmar association – which had his company and the Câmara de Portimão as founders, and now also has Portisub and Exclusive Diver (which works with the Pestana Group in Alvor ) as partners – she explained to the businessmen that the objective of the Ocean Revival project is «to make the Algarve one of the main European diving destinations».
The businessman recalled that there are eight million underwater tourists in the world, 3,2 million in Europe. The Algarve currently receives only 10 of these well-heeled tourists, with a dozen companies working in this market segment. But in 2022, according to the economic study carried out by Ocean Revival, the objective is to receive «90 divers» and «160 companions», also leading to the creation of more diving centers throughout the region.
As an attraction for underwater tourists – who come mainly from England, Germany and the Nordic countries – there will then be the artificial reef created by the old sunken Portuguese Navy warships. “We are going to promote the deliberate immersion of four Portuguese Navy ships”, making the coast opposite Portimão the only place in the world where “a fleet” is purposely sunk.
This will create, according to Sá Couto, «a new type of low-season tourism», in spring and autumn, contributing «3,8 percentage points on current values» to the hotel occupancy rates in the Algarve and with income that from the current 2,6 million euros annually to 70,5 million in 2022, within ten years. These are, at least, the accounts made by the project promoters.
António Pina, president of the Algarve Tourism Association (ATA), responsible for promoting the Algarve destination in the international market, stressed, at the session at Tempo, that this is «an excellent product that can give a stir in the sector, alongside tourism in cruises'.
Manuel da Luz, mayor of Portimão, for his part, stressed that the goal is to make Portimão and the Algarve a “must stop for diving tourists from all over the world”.
Pedro Lopes, director of the Pestana Group in the Algarve, speaking to Sul Informação, said the Ocean Revival project “is a bit like the Autodromo, in the sense that it is important to attract a niche market of people who take diving vacations. We can become a destination for this underwater tourism, but a destination that is only two and a half hours away from the issuing countries».
And which, as Sá Couto had already pointed out, has competitive advantages, among which the safety and quality of the infrastructure to support tourism stand out.
How does Pestana Group intend to take advantage of the Ocean Revival project? «We are going to put our sales machine at the service of the project. We have hotels in places where these underwater tourists come from, in London, Berlin, Brazil. And we have excellent contacts with major tour operators. We are going to take advantage of all this to promote this product, which is entirely new in this respect».
If all goes well on October 27th - and, after all the difficulties that arose, Luís Sá Couto said he would have to knock on wood to avoid more mishaps -, the site could start to be immersed the next day, after the team of divers from the Portuguese Navy and from the Ocean Revival project, go down there and check that everything is ok and safety conditions are guaranteed.
A “first dive, with pomp and circumstance”, announced Luís Sá Couto. And then? Then it's about promoting, promoting, promoting (Subnauta itself already has an international promotion plan in progress that will have the support of Turismo de Portugal) and wait for the investment to start bearing fruit.
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