July “is lost”, but the Portuguese Hotel Association (AHP) has the prospect of an August “reasonably filled with the national market” in the Algarve.
On the morning of Wednesday, June 30, AHP presented its forecasts for the summer of this year, in an online session where the Sul Informação marked presence.
Questioned by our newspaper, Raul Martins, president of the Hotel Association of Portugal, considered that the month of July «is lost because our competitors, such as France, Spain, Italy, Greece or Croatia, have numbers that allow access by Germans and foreigners. British people".
Even so, the expectation is that «August will be reasonably filled with the national market» and September and October «will improve in relation to the perspective we have for the Algarve».
"We believe that in September the situation will improve and there may be some transfers and last minute bookings," said the official.
According to data presented by AHP, the prospects for August reserves in the region are just above 60%.
The number, which is the highest in the entire country for that month, drops in September to around 50% and returns to 55% in October.
As for outbound markets, there is a prevalence of the domestic market which is expected to represent 88% of tourists. It follows Spain (69%) and France (50%).
The UK, with 30%, and Germany (29%) still have considerable data, but they should be lower as the forecasts were made at a time when, for example, the Germany had not yet placed Portugal on the red list.
As for seasonal hiring, 68% of respondents said they intended to strengthen the teams by hiring temporary workers.
What is certain is that, this year, "we still can't talk about tourism recovery", lamented Raul Martins, not least because 40% of tourists see the restriction of flights and limitation of mobility as an impediment - already 26% assume they are afraid of being infected with Covid-19.
Regarding the digital green certificate, which should exempt tourists from quarantines, Cristina Siza Vieira, vice president of AHP, recalled that its existence is regulated "and it is not a recommendation", warning that Germany "is failing" by forcing the isolation of citizens traveling to Portugal.
“It is important to leave the country logic and move to a people logic. This has, from the point of view of fairness, discrepancies, but these are the times. It's not worth playing with countries that are better today and worse tomorrow,” he said.
As for the perspectives for this year, this official believes that, "although the recovery has aborted", the year "will not be worse than 2020 because we have the internal market that will counterbalance".
To view the full AHP study, click here
Comments