In a presentation to journalists on the outlook for the property market in Portugal, C&W said that last year 60 new hotels opened with a total of 3,700 guest rooms: 17 percent more than in 2018.


Of all new guest rooms in 2019, just over half (52 percent) were in five-star hotels, namely the Savoy Palace (in Funchal, Madeira), the Pestana Blue Alvor (in Portimão, Algarve) and the Verde Mar & Spa (Ribeira Grande, Azores).


Over the next three years, 180 new projects are planned, totalling 15,000 new rooms.


Among the hotels already in the pipeline are Eurostars Aliados (in Porto), Enotel Madeira Palácio (in Funchal) and Moxy Lisbon Oriente (in Lisbon).


According to the consultancy firm, business in the hotel sector was stable in 2019, with the number of overnight stays between January and October up 0.2 percent on the same nine-month period in 2018 and the number of guests up 1.9 percent.


C&W, a US-based company, does not disclose the results of its own operations in Portugal. In the third quarter of 2019, it had global revenues of around €1.9 billion.


In Portugal, it was involved in some of the most important transactions in the property market in 2019, including the sale of office buildings in Lisbon, of property owned by Novo Banco - the successor organisation to collapsed bank Banco Espírito Santo - and the marketing of retail spaces such as Montijo Retail Park in Setúbal district.


It was also involved in deals resulting in the rental to Uber of a 5,000-square-metre warehouse in Águeda (in Aveiro district) and to DHL of a warehouse in Loulé. It also secured new contracts for the management of properties such as Montijo Retail Park, Torre Oriente in the Torres Colombo (in Lisbon) and two Exe hotels (of Spain’s Hotusa group) as well as overseeing and coordinating the construction of the Lisbon Portugal Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons).