Two Russian travel operators will fly in 30,000 tourists to the Algarve next year.
In its trade mission to Russia the government has secured a deal to bring significant numbers of Russian tourists to the Algarve.
The Economy Minister, António Pires de Lima, said that two of the largest travel operators in Russia will bring the tourists next year.
"In our mission to Russia, tourism was one of the points on the agenda and it stirred up plenty of interest and kept us very busy," recalled Pires de Lima, speaking at the Tourism Summit in Vilamoura.
Pires de Lima said also that the Algarve’s residential tourism sector is "up to private marketing and sales” and appeared to pitch this important provider against the hotel and guesthouse sector by intimating that the sector was rife with tax evasion which he intends to address with a brand new law to regulate the sector, forgetting that laws and over-regulation are the subjects of complaint from those that would offer their properties for let, but chose not to do so.
The new law is coming for local accommodation, including hostels and private properties that are let for tourism purposes, "we have nothing against these forms of accommodation, but these can not compete on the basis of tax evasion."
Pires de Lima then strayed from the government’s new message of late by focussing his speech on Portugal’s core product, the sun and the beach, and not stressing the current work dedicated to off season tourism in an effort to keep hotels, golf courses, hostels and restaurants open in the winter months.
"We live in a time of hope. The Portuguese economy is entering a new cycle," said the Minister of Economy, but adding a note of caution that "euphoria in businesses or politics is a bad advisor."
This was not the Minister of Tourism speaking, and just as well as his lack of grasp is painful to hear. The summer holiday trade is not the problem, the off season trade is and it is a sector that needs less regulation, not more. In a knee jerk reaction to the powerful hotel lobby continually bitching about private letting of villas, he has decided to regulate the sector further and will end up shrinking it.
Even the American businessman Steve Forbes, speaking at the same conference, grasped the importance of market segmentation for the Algarve by mentioning medical and gastronomic tourism to fill the off season months.
