Hoteliers demand ‘Plan B’ and ‘Plan C’
Portugal’s tourism sector is railing against the political “inefficiency” that has ensured that after years of false starts, the country is still no nearer knowing WHERE the new Lisbon airport will be, or when it will be constructed.
APAVT, the national association of travel and tourism agencies, stresses that the longer this process takes, the more anaemic the economy will become – while AHP, the association of hoteliers, is demanding a Plan B – an interim solution to the increase in tourist demand while the nitty gritty of where, when and how is sorted.
Tomorrow, the Independent Technical Commission (CTI) is expected to present its ‘report’ (outlining the optimum location for the airport) which will be the basis for a political decision once the next government has been formed.
AHP’s president and former secretary of State for tourism Bernardo Trindade has been telling Lusa that “what’s important is that the decision, the announcement, also includes Plan B and Plan C in terms of responding to the need to boost demand.
“Interest in Portugal is growing. The airlines are looking for the capacity to fly their planes to Portugal (…) and the Portuguese hotel association, and I have reiterated this to the Independent Technical Commission, they must present plan ‘Bs’ until the new airport is finally built…”
Speaking to Lusa about the tomorrow’s presentation, Trindade downplayed this latest delay precipitated by the lurid details of Operation Influencer, the prime minister’s resignation and the subsquent fall of the government.
“Temporally, adding another five months to 50 years (already wasted) doesn’t mean much,” he said.
“The works (currently ongoing) at Lisbon airport, the use of other infrastructures, all this is essential to ensure that Portugal does not lose demand”. But given the unexpected events of recent years – from the Covid pandemic to the conflicts, in Ukraine and the Middle East, and the situation of inflation and high interest rates – Trindade warned: “We don’t know what’s going to happen in the next few years.
“From a revenue point of view, 2023 is a positive year overall. Well, we’re all happy. The (economic) agents are happy. Why are they happy? Because we recovered more quickly than we anticipated, even with two wars,”.
An achievement that AHP’s president attributes to the work Portugal has done “over the years in terms of its visibility (as a tourist destination) and the quality of the services it provides.
“Today, we are satisfied, and when the world looks at us, it looks with confidence, and that is good.
“Now, what I can’t do is restrict demand. I can’t say, ‘well done, look what we’ve achieved” (…) but we do not have the capacity to grow any further.
“That’s what worries us,” he stressed.
Earlier this year, the government commissioned the Independent Technical Commission to analyse five possibilities for Lisbon’s airport solution (Portela + Montijo; Montijo + Portela; Alcochete; Portela + Santarém and Santarém), accepting that “other options could be added”. This is exactly what happened. After the first phase of receiving and analysing other proposals, the Portela + Alcochete, Portela + Pegões, Rio Frio + Poceirão and Pegões options were added.
These all involve differing amounts of investment/ work/ time – and carrying different ‘consequences’, particularly when it comes to the environment/ the health and lives of citizens.
APAVT’s concerns are equally based on the economic consequences of all this to-ing and froi-ing and getting nowhere.
When one considers António Costa’s government declared in 2019 that a futuristic new airport in Montijo would be ready by 2022 (!) to start receiving up to 50 million tourists per year one can understand the extent of ineptitude at play, compounding the 50 years in which pressure has ‘been mounting for a bigger and better airport’.
Before he resigned as minister for infrastructure, João Galamba promised “a quick decision after analysing CTI’s final report. Now that the country is in the full throes of political crisis, this quick decision is likely to be left to whichever party takes control following the elections on March 10.
And this is what infuriates APAVT. “It is the realisation that, considering the greatest cost of this process is not in reaching a decision, once again, that decision has been delayed, first due to the inefficiency of those who were supposed to make it, and now due to a political contingency that prevents anyone from making it”, APAVT president Pedro Costa Ferreira told Lusa.
As well as having to wait for a new government, the association fears other setbacks could occur; there may not even be the political will to continue with the process “as it was organised”. In other words, nothing is clear – and thus, in APAVT’s view, “overall, it is the country that is losing out.
“It’s the national economy that’s losing out because we’ve all realised that the growth of the Portuguese economy is anaemic. This anaemia is being hidden by the great behaviour of tourism, and this great behaviour of tourism requires developments at the airport. It requires an airport solution for Lisbon. The later this happens, the more difficult it will be to hide this anaemia, and the well-being of the Portuguese people will suffer,” Costa Ferreira insists.
Tomorrow’s report will give CTI’s evaluation of the nine options, according to five critical decision factors: aeronautical safety, accessibility and territory, human health and environmental viability, connectivity and economic development, and public investment and financing model.
Based on the scores obtained, it will be up to the government to make its decision, which will be political, says Lusa, not technical.
President Marcelo has said that he will be formalising the government’s resignation on Thursday, thus the chances of a decision (even with infrastructures now being the responsibility of the outgoing prime minister) have been discounted.
Source material: LUSA
