20 hotels close in Porto as tourists disappear

The president of Turismo do Porto e Norte de Portugal (TPNP) said today that 20 hotels in the city of Porto closed in the first 10 days of November, representing 3,200 empty beds, and called for support measures.

He called on the government to strengthen support measures for businesspeople in the hotel and restaurant sector.

“I call on the government to keep supporting these companies and to adapt as circumstances also change. This is very important. The main objective is to keep them active or prepared to go into operation at any time, and the other is to maintain jobs”.

The Hotel Dom Henrique, a benchmark establishment in downtown Porto, suspended “temporarily the hotel activity since 1 November due to the lack of tourists”, the hotel’s front-office confirmed to Lusa today.

The Hotel Infante Sagres is also “temporarily closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic and measures to prevent the spread of the virus”, confirmed the official source of that hotel, mentioning that the hotels of The Yeatman group, in Vila Nova de Gaia, and the Vintage House, in the Douro river valley, in Pinhão, continue to “operate normally”.

At the Spanish Eurostars hotel chain, Douro Port, on Avenida Gustavo Eiffel, closed on Monday and the Exe Almada Porto Hotel, on Rua do Almada, closed today because “there are no tourists in town” due to the pandemic and the new government restrictions, one of the Eurostars Porto Centro Hotel reception staff told Lusa, which is still open.

Vila Galé Porto, on Rua Sá da Bandeira, the Inca Hotel, on Praça Coronel Pacheco, in Cedofeita, are other units that have chosen to close this month in Porto.

The government announced last weekend a curfew between 23:00 and 05:00 on weekdays, from 9th November until 23rd November, in the 121 municipalities most affected by the pandemic.

On 11 October, and with the approaching low season for tourism, the president of the Hotel Association of Portugal (AHP), Cristina Siza Vieira, told Lusa that there were some hotel groups that had already signalled their intention to close some hotels due to lack of demand.

According to a quick estimate released by the National Statistics Institute (INE), on 29 October, tourism activity didn’t recover in September, with 1.4 million guests and 3.6 million overnight stays, which corresponds to falls of 52.2% and 53.4% respectively.

The Covid-19 pandemic has caused at least 1,263,890 deaths in more than 50.9 million cases of infection worldwide, according to the French agency AFP