The hotel and tourism workers union management said today that it was deeply concerned about the financial situation at the hotels in the Tivoli group whose management has applied for relief under a Special Revitalisation Process.
It does not help the general mood that the hotel company’s sole shareholder, the Espírito Santo subsidiary, Rioforte Investments, is itself bankrupt.
The leader of the Sindicato da Indústria de Hotelaria, Turismo, Restaurantes e Similares do Sul, Rodolfo Caseiro, said that the union has expressed its concern with Tivoli head office management and is monitoring the situation.
After Rioforte went bust, Tivoli Hotels & Resorts announced it was applying for a Special Revitalisation Process for its Tivoli and Marinotéis hotels and assured all that the hotels would continue to function as before.
However, Caseiro today said that the union has some reservations and is suspicious of company’s management when it comes to questions about his members’ job prospects.
"Although the company's managers have said there will be no redundancies, we do not believe them," said Caseiro.
The union leader explained that there has been conflicting information in the media about the sale to a Thai company of two Tivoli hotels in Brazil and four in Portugal and that the management has been evasive when asked to clarify the situation.
Tivoli Hotels & Resorts runs 14 hotels in Portugal and Brazil, including Tivoli Hotels and Marinotéis.
On January 28, Tivoli Hotels & Resorts management announced that the Thai group MINT had bought six hotels in the Tivoli group, two in Brazil and four in Portugal.
Tivoli hotels are in a seriously poor financial state and their management's application to the court for special protection has revealed that 822 suppliers are owed money.
Around 300 worried workers await the outcome of the Special Revitalisation Process application which currently is being assessed by the Commercial Court in Lisbon.
With Rioforte unable to provide working capital, the hotel chain submitted an application to the Commercial Court to avoid filing for bankruptcy.
The 822 creditors are owed €136 million between them. They include EDP and other power companies, travel agencies, municipal water services, and the French born Brazilan chef Olivier Anquier who operated a restaurant in a group hotel in the Avenida da Liberdade in Lisbon.
In 2014, Rioforte started to prepare the hotel group for sale but when Espírito Santo Group went to the wall, and Rioforte itself collapsed, the sale negotiations ended up with the official administrator in Luxembourg.
The union leader is right to be concerned especially as the current management is unable or unwilling to give him assurances on who owns what and the employment prospects for the hotel staff.
