By Sophie McCarrick sophie.mccarrick@algarveresident.com
Albufeira Mayor Desidério Silva was elected new Algarve Tourism Board (ERTA) president on Monday (October 22).
Following the election, he announced that he would be trading in his role as mayor of Albufeira at the end of October to allow full time commitment to his new position with ERTA.
The 61-year-old politician received his presidency role with 18 votes in favour of his election, five against and seven in abstention. A further two ERTA members did not attend the conference to vote.
Stepping into the shoes of ERTA’s former president António Pina, who held the valued position from May 2007, Silva has vowed that he does not plan on making any redundancies within the board, despite a reduced budget.
“I did not come here to form a liquidation committee or to fire anybody. I am here to work with all ERTA members, employees and social partners,” he said.
One of Silva’s presidency proposals revealed his hopes of increasing the number of direct flights into Faro airport from international locations, thus making the region more accessible to those countries where climatic conditions are not as attractive as in Portugal.
 Desidério Silva (centre) is Algarve’s new tourism chief |
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The role of the president of ERTA involves determining how the annual budget of €1 million will be spent on promoting the Algarve both within Portugal and overseas, while a further €3 million in the ERTA budget will be dedicated to the fixed running costs of the entity including salary payments.
From November, it is anticipated that dozens of hotels, restaurants and cafés will shut down, leaving thousands of people across the Algarve without work, and pressure on Silva’s shoulders now builds to improve the Algarve’s touristic appeal and ensure as many jobs as possible are saved.
Accused of ‘jumping ship’
Silva leaves his 10-year position as the Social Democratic Party (PSD) mayor of Albufeira amid accusations of “running away” and “jumping ship” by the opposition Socialist Party (PS), who say he has been incompetent during his term and mismanaged the municipality’s finances.
Blaming Silva for the alleged “disastrous financial situation” of Albufeira, the town’s PS leader believes the new ERTA president has “decided to jump ship and seek refuge in Turismo do Algarve”, despite the tourism board welcoming him warmly.
Ricardo Clement said that because of Silva’s “excessive spending” and “lack of strategy” he has placed the town in a very delicate financial situation.
“The municipality has not contained costs and has not planned for the future. The PSD management has been focused only on short-term perks in order to obtain popularity and ensure re-elections,” said the PS party in a statement.
The PS party believes that Albufeira’s recent application for emergency funding, worth €30.2 million from the government’s Local Economy Support Programme (PAEL), to pay off short-term debts could have been avoided if Silva had managed the town’s funds responsibly.
Desidério Silva revealed after his election that when his role as mayor of Albufeira terminates, his position will be taken up by the current vice-mayor, José Carlos Rolo.
A spanner in the works
Apart from the daunting accusations that follow Desidério Silva into his new ERTA presidency role, the threat of a new tourism law, that aims to reduce the number of tourism boards across Portugal to five entities, looms over the president as the legislation proposed is expected to lead to redundancies and see promotional programmes being handed to private agencies.
“We want to have better promotion of Portugal and better targeting of external campaigns; to do this we can rely on the private sector,” said the Portuguese Secretary of State for Tourism, Cecília Meireles.
With the new law, five new main tourism regions will be created – Algarve, North of Portugal, Centre of Portugal, Lisbon and Alentejo.
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