The elections for the governing bodies of the Algarve Tourism Association (ATA), the entity responsible for the external promotion of the Algarve destination, scheduled for December 3, have been postponed, probably to a date between December 18 and 20, according to the Sul Informação.
On December 3, a general meeting will now take place to discuss and amend the Electoral Regulations, which had not yet undergone changes after the recent amendment to the ATA Statutes, which took place last summer.
The discussion of the amendment of the Electoral Regulation, made at the request of the Algarve Hotels and Touristic Enterprises Association (AHETA), will give this association another fifteen days to try to get out of the imbroglio in which it has been placed, due to the alleged "intransigence and irreducibility" of the its president, Elidérico Viegas, who demanded to stay with the future presidency of the ATA, as well as a majority in the direction.
This position of AHETA led, for the first time in the history of ATA, to the emergence of two lists to compete: one led by AHETA, headed by Joel Pais, and supported by the Algarve Golfe association, whose president, by the way, is vice-president. president of that hotel association, another one led by Carlos Gonçalves Luís, representative of the Portuguese Association of Travel and Tourism Agents (APAVT), and which is part of the list, to which the Sul Informação he found out, leaders of the AIHSA (Association of Hotel and Similar Industries of the Algarve), the Algarve Tourism Region itself (RTA), as well as other associations of sectors linked to tourism and also responsible for golf, hotels, rent-a-cars, official entities.
As a matter of fact, this will also be the first time that there will be elections in a new way for the ATA, since, according to the previous statutes, the presidency was always assumed by the RTA, with two inherences, those of AHETA and of AIHSA.
It was precisely this issue of inertia, amended in the Statutes but not in the Regulation, that led to the request to postpone the elections, since, in practice, both lists ended up being illegal and could be challenged by not including, at the same time, the two hotel associations.
"As it was seen in good time that the Electoral Regulations had not been changed, only the Statutes, it was considered good to have this general assembly that will approve this change," said Elidérico Viegas, president of AHETA, to our newspaper.
Interestingly, and despite being appointed by Carlos Luís as "responsible" for the lack of consensus and the emergence of the two lists, Elidérico Viegas, in his statements to the Sul Informação, he said it is "desirable that there is an agreement on a single list".
Statements that Carlos Luís, who should head the alternative list, which is already ready and just awaiting the appointment of a new date for the elections to be delivered, considers as "at least strange".
“In the three or four meetings that there were with AHETA on the ATA elections, he always demanded the presidency and a majority of the vice presidencies. And they even said that either it was like that or it wasn't”, says Carlos Luís, lamenting the “irreducibility” of the positions defended by the hoteliers association.
ATA has around 300 members, including industry associations (AHETA, AIHSA, APAVT, ARAC, Algarve Golf, ACRAL), hotels, golf courses, rent-a-car companies, casinos, restaurants, travel agencies, the airport of Faro, a printing company, RTA and AMAL.
The seven founding partners – AHETA, AIHSA, APAVT, ARAC, Algarve Golfe, ACRAL and RTA – are entitled to 10 votes each, while the others are entitled to one vote. There will currently be approximately 200 members with the ability to vote as they are up to date.
Carlos Luís is confident that his list will win, as he has five of the founders on his side (with the exception of AHETA and Algarve Golfe), as well as RTA and most of the other members. But until election day it will still be able to run a lot of water under bridges…And a third way may even appear, in the form of a consensus list.
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