The Minister of State, Economy and Digital Transition participated in a conference organised jointly by the news agencies Lusa and the Spanish EFE, with the theme “Tourism in times of Covid-19”, when he stated that the decision of the UK, one of the main tourist markets for Portugal, was taken “without scientific basis, even adopting the criterion that it decided to follow”.

“These are completely different situations, that are happening in Lisbon and in the rest of the territory that has a low rate on incidence”, he added.

The official also underlined that the availability of the national health system was never under a “stress” situation, and is dealing well with the response to the pandemic.

The UK is the main tourist market for Portugal, representing 19.2 percent of overnight stays from foreigners in 2019 and has been recording successive growth since 2013, only interrupted in 2018, according to data from INE.

The preferred destinations for British guests are the Algarve (63.8 percent of overnight stays in the market), Madeira (18.5 percent) and the Metropolitan Area of Lisbon (10.8 percent).

On 3 July, the United Kingdom announced which “international travel corridors” it would resume from the 10 July, excluding Portugal from that list.

Portuguese diplomacy already reacted, considering the UK’s decision of excluding Portugal from the “international travel corridors” as “absurd”, “wrong” and a decision that causes “great disappointment”, bringing several economic consequences and mutual trust issues.
In the conference, Pedro Siza Vieira also said that he is convinced that Portugal “due to its ability to present itself to the world as a safe destination”, with a great diversity of landscapes and cultural environments, will return to the centre of consumer preferences.

“During this time, which is from now until we recover the travel flow that we all hope for, it is very important to have the capacity to support the thousands of companies, many of them small and medium-sized companies, which will have a greatly reduced turnover during this year, which need to be preserved as much as possible, because that is what makes a tourist destination successful”, he reiterated.

Pedro Siza Vieira considered it necessary to invest in future competitiveness factors, like sustainability, digitalisation and human resources qualification.

“We will continue to invest in what the new country destinations are, nature tourism (…), redesign buildings into parks, (…) to support the conversion of living units to a more circular economic system, greater energy efficiency”, guaranteed the minister.
The marked effects of the decrease in tourism can be seen in the latest statistics from INE in Portugal.

According to the National Statistics Institute (INE), overnight stays from residents decreased 85.9 percent (-93.5 percent in April) and those from non-residents decreased 98.4 percent (-98.9 percent in the previous month).

Total income recorded a negative change of 97.2 percent (-98.5 percent in April), standing at €11 million. Income from accommodation reached €9.6 million, decreasing 96.8 percent (-98.2 percent in the previous month).

Guests and overnight stays maintained historical declines in the period under review, with approximately 70.4 percent of tourist accommodation establishments closed or with no record of movement of guests (85 percent in April 2020).

The main markets maintained reductions of over 90 percent, with the largest declines occurring in the British, Irish (-99.4 percent in both), North American (-99.3 percent) and French (-99.0 percent).

Since the beginning of the year, all the main markets have decreased, with emphasis on the Irish (-79.0 percent), Belgian
(-71.3 percent), Swiss (-71.1 percent) and French (-70, 5 percent).

The Canadian (-47.2 percent) and Brazilian (-51.0 percent) markets were, among the main ones, those that registered smaller decreases.
Meanwhile, the Portuguese President has been working to help push tourism in the country to help to secure the industry.

Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, has defended “positive discrimination” for the tourism sector, considering that the Algarve is one of the Portuguese regions where this particular discrimination is very important.

“Tourism in general; restaurants, hotels and sectors linked to tourism, deserve a positive discrimination and the Algarve is one of areas where this is very important”, said Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.

The President indicated that the Government “is seriously looking at the tourism situation” especially in terms of employment. Marcelo also added that the Government is being “very attentive to the Algarve’s situation”.

Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa hopes that on 20 July, when Ireland releases its list of countries at risk “it could translate into different news”. BS/KS/Lusa