The PSD deputy elected by Algarve Cristóvão Norte questioned the finance minister on the reduction of funds for the Tourism Regions "by about 10 percent" foreseen in the State Budget for 2016, during a hearing to the member of the Government.
A situation that, according to the person responsible for the guardianship, also from the Algarve Mário Centeno, will be compensated with a sum of 3,5 million euros, to be channeled to regional entities via Turismo de Portugal, solution that the Sul Informação had already advanced, more than two weeks ago.
On a visit to the region, the Secretary of State for Tourism Ana Mendes Godinho told the Sul Informação which, between the funds transferred directly from the State Budget and that which will come from Turismo de Portugal, the RT budgets would "maintain and even rise slightly", more precisely "about 1 percent", in 2016.
The solution that does not reassure the Social Democrat parliamentarian, who emphasizes that the announced reinforcement budget “depends on the competition, so it may not be awarded or its value for each entity is not known, a circumstance that conflicts with the necessary predictability in management of the budgets of regional tourism bodies'.
According to Cristóvão Norte, the most important issue is for the Tourism Regions to know what they can count on. The budget cut in the OE headquarters, which had been announced for a long time, led the National Tourism Association to publicly consider that a reduction in this scope would put “in question the current management and promotion commitments established last October with economic agents private companies'.
«Considering that “tourism has been the engine of the economy, particularly in the export of goods and services”, those who have the role of structuring products, creating brands and carrying out promotion cannot be disarmed”, defended the parliamentarian from Algarve.
Full intervention by Cristóvão Norte in video:
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