Spacious rooms, a privileged view over the salt marsh and the Guadiana River, attention to detail and constant adaptation to the client's needs. The new hotel that will be born in the village of Castro Marim does not yet have a name, but it is already known that it will be a 4-star hotel, will cost around 2,5 million euros and should go into operation within two years.
This project was one of the ones that was focused on a fam trip, a visit for journalists and tourist agents, organized by the Algarve Tourism Region to Castro Marim, this Thursday, March 22. Because, despite this being a municipality where tourism is already well developed, namely on the coast, the county seat does not have any hotel yet.
Nuno Vasques, who is the general director of the Hotel Apolo, in Vila Real de Santo António, belonging to the same company that is now preparing to invest in Castro Marim, accompanied the family trip and lifted the veil over the project.
According to him, the future hotel unit will have «44 large rooms, with an area of 25 square meters each», and will have as its main banner the «genuineness of Castro Marim», taking advantage of the fact that this town has a rich history and is surrounded by a classified natural area full of riches, easily accessible on foot or by bicycle.
This is not just a general guideline, it will be a strategy. “We are planning to have a small bicycle workshop at the hotel, as well as an enclosed space to store them,” he said.
This approach is closely linked to the fact that these promoters know Castro Marim very well, a municipality with which they have family connections. “The family [owner of the Hotel Apolo] is from here and we thought this was the right time to invest here,” said Nuno Vasques.
«We think that Castro Marim is in a golden triangle», where you can offer customers culture, nature, but also the beach, «which is five minutes away».
The general director of Hotel Apolo also highlighted the importance it has for the group that represents the opening of this new hotel unit. “We want to open another proximity unit, so that we can gain scale”, he explained.
The future hotel will be built on land located on the eastern edge of the village of Castro Marim, next to the Sapal Nature Reserve, one of the seven classified wetlands in Portugal. It will be in the direction of the salt marsh, as well as the river Guadiana and Spain, that all rooms will be oriented.
This investment follows a public tender launched in 2017 by the municipality of Castro Marim, which provided land next to the current playground for the construction of a hotel of at least 3 stars.
At the time the competition was launched, the mayor Francisco Amaral highlighted that this village in Sotavento «has an enormous historical and cultural heritage and the Nature Reserve beside it». «We have several projects to build bicycle paths to connect the village to VRSA, the Nature Reserve, Praia Verde, Altura and also Monte Francisco, where the Largo Paco de Lucía will be located, where we will honor the greatest guitarist in the world. It makes perfect sense to create a hotel unit here», he defended.
These were precisely the main reasons that Nuno Vasques pointed out for his group's interest in investing in Castro Marim. "What has been done here has been done well," praised the hotel director.
At this moment, and despite the idea for the future hotel being well defined, there is still no architectural project to show, considering that the licensing phase is in progress. It is also necessary to choose a name for the hotel.
And, in this regard, the Castro-Marinenses will have their say. “We are planning to launch an ideas contest for the name of the unit in some time. For now, it's just the hotel in Castro Marim», concluded Nuno Vasques.
Photos: Hugo Rodrigues | Sul Informação
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