Two or three things I think of knowing about the Algarve
1. A innocent child shouts the truth: « the king goes naked. » I have been eighty years old and I have long renounced all ambitions except to function in contact with reality. And I scream that the Algarve, covered by the “Diaphanous Cloak of Fantasy”, Walk to mediocre destination with quality islands that will, on time, will lose it.
2. How did we arrive here?
i) Over the years public political years contradict the development of regional tourism. Nevertheless, the Algarve goes from one of the poorest regions of the country to the second on the continent in the per capita GDP. This should be the most important regional destination in the country for tourism profits.
II) Since 1970, the laws of tourist accommodation fight the innovation that the Algarve represented. Ignorance generates culture and policy of combating “real estate” (accommodation for their own use) and “parallel beds” (their tourist lease). ‘Scientific’ and CCRA/CCDRA studies, they get the number of “parallel beds”. Van Gelder acquires 80 -hectare wolf Valley, but to create the 480 hectares resort must disqualify it as a tourist village.
iii) Since the III Plan of Promotion Public Policy defends the diversification of the regional economy and defines regional development instruments that do not support tourism or even combat it. Exceptions and some recent dynamism do not hide the failure of this policy and the inability to recognize that it has failed. The initial priority given to Algarve tourism gives way to correct regional imbalances.
IV) From the beginning, the State has never built the indispensable public infrastructures necessary for tourism. The regional planning plan of territory almost prohibits resorts outside urban perimeters, leads to their absurd densification, failure in the 400 million promised tales, reinforces the radical environmental environmentalism. It allows the degradation of the territory by accumulating errors of tens of years.
v) The elite of the Algarve does not like tourism, is not proud of the work done and is passive against the ongoing degradation. Saw the branch of the tree in which it is sitting.
3. We have to change the essentials so that everything is not in the same.
i) the economic, social and environmental sustainability of the tourist destination and the region begins with living forces to break free from fantasy, assume their responsibility and oblige state and municipalities to, once in tens of years, to fulfill what the country demands.
ii) State and region define two light regional institutions, linked to the reality of Algarve tourism and exclusively dedicated
-The state, via state, municipalities and private, the territorial qualification in the direction -very green and zero crap, among others -the reduction of ecological footprint and the promotion of the circular economy,
-The branding connected to marketing & sales of private supply in Europe and position the Algarve on the east coast of North America, as Salazar positioned the Algarve in northern Europe.
iii) Only the quality of the public and private tourism supply qualifies the demand.
iv) The diversification strategy focuses on attracting international partner that drag others to intelligent territory outside of densified urban perimeters, so that the resident population grows in 12,500 inhabitants, with export of services.
4.Why to live, you will see!
Senior Tourism and Air Transport Analyst
