the State is not making the payments due

In an interview with Antena1 and Jornal de Negócios, José Theotónio, CEO (Executive Director) of Grupo Pestana, the group that leads the Mobilizing Agenda for Tourism, considers that implementation is progressing at different paces and that “there is great difficulty in payments”. This delay is particularly compromising the lives of smaller companies.

José Theótonio hopes that with the new government payments can advance. Regarding the new supervision, he recognizes experience in the people chosen, which “is a saving of time”, but considers that it is also necessary to have political weight to be able to influence other areas on which tourism depends.

José Theótonio admits that the protest on the streets in Portugal against the so-called excess of tourism will even happen, as we have seen in Spain, but he understands that there is no excess tourism. What From your point of view, there is a concentration in certain areas. Therefore, it recommends that measures be implemented by the State and private parties to better manage tourist flows.

The CEO of Grupo Pestana, who presented the 2023 results this week, with a 23 percent growth in revenue, believes that if there are no surprises, the summer will be good for tourism and 2024 could represent an even better year than 2023.

In this context, he considers that there is still room to further increase the cost of overnight stays, on a price/quality basis and in comparison with the offer of other destinations. He adds that this price increase could be global, but remembers that those with the greatest capacity to do so are larger and larger companies.

The CEO of Grupo Pestana believes that water will not be a problem in the Algarve in the summer, but remembers that the problem must be resolved.

In this interview, José Theotónio revealed that the ongoing judicial investigations into the business between the AFA Group and the regional government of Madeira “are a concern for everyone”, which also led to an internal assessment based on the group’s compliance rules and which it concluded that “from the organization’s point of view we have no facts”.