Faro Airport is in the hot seat this week for an ad that it promoted on its social media pages in English and Portuguese encouraging people to “fly away from the confusion of the Algarve and take a break in France”.
The ad, which has already been taken down, was first posted last week and it did not take long for scores of people to lambast it for promoting Marseille instead of the Algarve and highlighting the French city’s “marinas, beaches, transparent water and heat”.
Cristóvão Norte, an Algarve MP for opposition party PSD, slammed the initiative as a “shameful display of foolishness and disrespect for the Algarvian people” and said he did not understand why the airport, which should be a “guiding force” in the efforts to promote the region, was carrying out an “unjustified and inadequate campaign” that “collided with the region’s interests.”
As he pointed out, the airport’s social media pages are followed by thousands of people who do not live in the Algarve and who now could be tempted to travel someplace else. Norte has also demanded a formal apology from the airport.
Algarve tourism boss João Fernandes also “vehemently condemned” the ad, describing it as an “attack against the region’s image”.
“Thus, fulfilling its mission as the region’s tourism entity, the RTA contacted the airport’s administration which ordered the immediate suspension of the campaign and an investigation to determine who was responsible,” the Algarve’s tourism board said in a statement.
It added: “Despite what happened, RTA continues to trust Faro Airport as one of its main partners committed to the success of the Algarve’s tourism sector”.
Meantime, PS Algarve has linked this case to the decision by the former PSD and CDS-PP-led government to privatise national airport authority ANA and leave in the hands of French group Vinci.
While this particular ad caused a furore for specifically advising people to “fly away from the confusion of the Algarve,” these kinds of promotional campaigns for other destinations are quite common on the airport’s social media pages.
As we write this article, the airport’s Facebook page has posted ads about Stockholm, Copenhagen, Manchester and Verona in just the last few days. But unlike the Marseille ad, these do not encourage people to “fly away from the Algarve”.
michael.bruxo@algarveresident.com
Update: Marketing company Brandworkers has “assumed full responsibility” for the ad and lamented its “negative impact,” saying that it had in fact been rejected by Faro Airport. The truth, however, is that it was posted online on the airport’s social media.
