The president of the Association of Portugal Hospitality, Luís Veiga, says the government’s ‘best year ever’ announcement for last year's hotel tourism sector should be taken with a huge pinch of salt, stopping one step before calling it a lie.
No records have been broken in hotel occupancy, Viega assured the media, adding that the figures for last year did not even reach 2007 levels.
The Secretary of State for Tourism says that 2014 was the year "in which all records were broken" but this according to Viega is nonsense and simply political posturing as politicians use data to suit their own agendas.
Luis Veiga questioned the holy grail of large hotel profitability, emphasizing that two-thirds of hotels still have net losses with huge economic problems in many hotel units.
Prospects for 2015 are cheerier but the "explosive" growth in private villa rentals has the hoteliers worried.
According to AHP, there are 8,000 private villas for rent in Portugal, but the actual figure is not known but could be as high as 50,000 beds.
The new Alojamento Local regime was meant to end the insane form-filling bureaucracy that plagued the private villa rental market but the volume of new registrations is nowhere near approaching a level that reflects the actual market size.
Luis Veiga also addressed other issues affecting hotels such as an absurd tax levy and the high cost of electricity, water and gas.
"These are huge costs, which is why hotels are not profitable," said Viega whose market assessment differed rather from the cheery figures being pumped out by Economy Minister Pires de Lima and his acolytes.
