Airbnb 'helps the middle class'

airbnb2Airbnb's economic impact on Portugal was €1.07 billion last year with a new survey from the company showing 1.6 million people booking through the website during 2016.

Founded in 2008, the company handled €72 million in rental income for Lisbon plus a further €404 million was spent locally in the capital - the most popular place chosen for short breaks.

Wrong Uber loses in Lisbon appeal court

ubertaxiUber Technologies Inc. has lost in Portugal’s appeal court to Antral, the taxi drivers union, in the latest in a bizarre series of hearings as this American company does not operate in Portugal.

While waiting for legislation to be processed through parliament to ensure Uber BV in the Netherlands, the company that runs the Portuguese operation, can establish and develop the app based transport service with the government’s blessing, Antral has been pursuing Uber Inc since 2015 even though its lawyers are after the wrong company.

Lagoa Wine Show again ruined by high volume of background music

lagoaThis weekend's Lagoa Wine Show again was ruined by noise with a speaker system leaving exasperated exhibitors and a scattering of visitors shouting at each other and still not being heard.

The argument still rages over Lagoa council’s unilateral decision to call its area ‘The Capital of Wines,’ but as for the show, this third attempt was as poor as the previous two with organisers failing to listen to last year’s feedback and attempting to run a show at which nobody can be heard.

Woman dies in cliff plunge - four drown at Portugal's beaches

INEM125Police, Civil Protection personnel and firemen today found the body of a woman who had been missing since Sunday night after her car left the road and plunged into a steep ravine near São Teotónio, Alentejo.

The accident appears to have been reported by the driver of the vehicle who suffered only slight injuries. The victim was his mother. The car left the clifftop between Barca and Cabo Sardão and plunged onto the rocks below.

Demonstrating overseas BES depositors still ignored by Novo Banco and the government

eiffeltowerRipped-off overseas customers of Banco Espirito Santo demonstrated in central Paris on Saturday as there has been no resolution to claims that they were sold dodgy investments in the terminally sick bank when it was desperate for cash.

The group last came out in force in February in front of the Novo Banco’s Paris branch and in March they took their complaints en masse to the Portuguese embassy in the French capital.

'Blue Whale' suicide game arrives in Portugal – Police give advice to parents

whalehumpbackOn 27th April a young woman threw herself from an overpass over a railway line and was injured. PSP, who was aware of two other cases, has given advice to parents, writes Safe Communities Portugal.

Participating in a game called the 'Blue Whale' is believed to be the origin of this incident that which took place at Algarve railway line in the Ferreiras area of ​​Albufeira.

Government refuses to scrap 'bottled gas refund' law

gasThe Secretary of State for Energy has confirmed that a payment scheme for the small amount of liquid left in returned gas bottles will start this year, but not on a bottle-by-bottle basis.

The government is insisting on moving forward with this lunatic measure that originally made it law that consumers were to be reimbursed for the precise weight of residual gas lying in the bottom of their returned bottles.

Portugal #1 in Europe for Blue Flag beaches 2017

DonaAnaSeawallThe Algarve continues to lead the country in the number of Blue Flag beaches, according to the 2017 list.

With one beach in, and one beach out in this year’s line up, both in Lagoa, the region sports 86 beaches that are up to internationally recognised standards.