Summer tourist destinations are always central at this time of year. For good and bad reasons.
In the case of the Algarve, the conquest of summer centrality develops in mysterious ways:
RYANAIR – to your aggressive style, this Low Cost tries to publicly condition the Government to subsidize its off-season expansion at the Airport of Faro.
The Government whistled to the side. If I know these operators well, they must have blackmailed everything and everyone and wanted a business with zero risk.
The Government was right in not accepting, but wrong in not having a counter-proposal, in the molds that interested it and that should presuppose shared risks.
Not accepting blackmail, it should have had the art of leaning this operator against the wall, with conditions to ensure the business for the Algarve, but with guarantees of compliance with traffic. They lost both, and the Algarve too.
LIFESTYLE, NIGHT and BEACH BARS – the consolidation of lifestyle and the night in the Algarve came to stay. It became the summer model and even the players year-round they converted to the same, instead of wasting their time with legal and protectionist wars (as mentioned 4 or 5 years ago).
With this vibe, style and glamorous, I hope that sector leaders do not appear giving interviews in empty swimming pools and closed projects.
INATEL Albufeira – The directors of INATEL and the technicians of the Council of Albufeira should be reprimanded for the crime that is the recovery of the old INATEL. What was there was shameful, abandoned, in a location premium.
Rehabilitation is an outrage. There went the original moth and all the storytelling of the building. Which gave it unique value and relevant positioning.
There went the flavor of resort that any hotel over the sea must have. It became an urban hotel, just like all the others.
No wonder it turned 3 stars. It does admire that Albufeira has missed an opportunity to reposition itself, based on the upward conversion of this asset. Then complain that prices are low.
PORTUGAL PICTURE – wrapped in the meshes of corruption in Portimão, this project for the development of the film industry in the Algarve, with an impact on the tourism economy, became a haunting event.
Even so, I hope that the vision and the positive parts of it are not thrown away. Corruption aside, these types of projects are the right way (and one of the cheapest!) to leverage the global image of tourist destinations and intensify competition with competitors.
ALGARVE WITH EVENTS – ERTA published the region's distinctive events for this August. From the Seafood Festival, from Sardine to Frango do Guia, it was a list of regionally based events. All important, without a doubt, and fortunately with a lot of public.
The point is that the region continues to flag non-positioning events and low added value, with inherent costs for its global image.
They are very important, I repeat, but if the Algarve ever wants to be a high-end tourist region, it will have to exorcise the poor “donkey, old woman and straw hat” strategy (it even offered some figs and jams to David Cameron , British Prime Minister, who must have laughed out loud behind the back of the person who offered them to him).
SINGLE LIST for ERTA – led by Desidério Silva, deserves our support. At this stage, it is not easy to lead the tourist destination, with poor resources and with the confusion that is the management of tourism in our country.
As for the Marketing Advisory Board, the opinion changes. The Council should be composed of specialists in Tourism Destination Marketing, Strategy, Economics, Management, etc. What I see there are responsible for the sector's associations, which perceive little or nothing of these matters.
There goes the opportunity to have specialists technically working on serious matters, in order to support the Presidency in its strategic decisions. The legislation was changed and everything remained the same. Sad.
INCREASE IN FOREIGN TOURISTS – Summer is apparently better than in previous seasons. The surplus (spillovers) of competing destinations, produced by social conflict in North Africa, is at the genesis of this.
Thus, this search is neither natural nor lasting. It's cyclical. Better than nothing. Let them take the opportunity now to not sell cheap and to gain more loyalty to those who came here, because they had nowhere else to go. I'm curious to see the late summer stats.
With the rest of the country empty and politics going into “Manta Rota” mode, observing the centrality of the Algarve, albeit briefly and not always for the best reasons, is still pleasurable.
Author Mário Candeias is Hotel Manager
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