The main Algarve hotel association today blamed the Left Bloc for upsetting tourists for placing large posters that it says are critical of Portuguese and German governments.
The politcal message to be seen on hoardings near many of the Algarve’s key tourist developments has been 'causing concern' to German tourists, according to the association boss..
Elidérico Veigas, the president of the Association of Hotels and Resorts in the Algarve, is not known for his sense of humour and today called on the Left Bloc to withdraw the posters which have a German message, translated into Portuguese, and images of the German Chancellor Angela Merkl and the Portuguese Prime Minister.
The phrase ‘A government more German than the Germans’ has, according to Viegas, has been upsetting German tourists and causing “confusion, surprise and displeasure, to say the least,” he says the posters appear to criticize the German government and Germany itself.
The message refers to the siding with Germany of key Portuguese government members during recent negotiations between the EC and Greece, with Portugal joining Germany in pushing for a hard line approach to Greece’s debt mountain.
Veigas said these posters have been "deliberately placed" next to tourist developments and are "generating widespread discontent" among his members.
The president of the association warned that these messages can have "negative consequences for the region’s image in terms of the economic interests of businesses and their workers,” adding that the Algarve is the main tourist region in Portugal, and tourism is the country’s main export activity.
The Left Bloc took a more enlightened attitude to its political campaign and has refused to remove the posters, rejecting absolutely the idea that the posters deliberately have been placed at entrances to the region’s tourist resorts.
In response to the hoteliers’ complaint, the Left Bloc announced that it will "keep their posters and that in a democracy it is not for any entrepreneur or association of entrepreneurs to accept or reject any form of legal political communication."
The party spokesman said that ten posters have been placed across the Algarve on roundabouts and along the EN125 in highly visible locations and that it had not been the intention deliberately to place them next to tourist developments.
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