(2nd August). The last of today’s headline stories : ‘Bernardo Trindade Pulls Out His Election Agenda Today – Meeting with ex-members of parliament in São Bento; Luísa Clode Araújo is chosen as the representative’. Trindade, currently Portugal’s minister for tourism, and a Madeiran, is adding the final touches to his campaign team. He is ‘top of the list’ for the socialist party to represent Madeira, and in truth is the only one likely to succeed after the 3 socialists that were elected last time.
The political parties will this week begin delivering their lists of candidates for the local and national elections to the governing tribunal. The lists must be all in by the 17th August for both elections.
‘Tourists Stir Little On Porto Santo – There are hotels on the island with good occupation, but others are lower than last year’. This weekend has been good, and next week has higher bookings than expected, but there are complaints about the loss of business since 2008 in some quarters, especially those that are less than a third booked. After the episode with the Italian tourists, the island is being (re)discovered by Venezuelan emigrants and many French who are new this year, and also there has been an increase in the number of Spanish visitors, and those using the new charter flights from Lisbon and Porto. The Torre Praia, Aparthotel Luamar, and the Praia Dourada all have reservations of about 90%, but they all belong to the same group, and offer packages tied in with the ferry company Porto Santo Line. The Hotel Quinta do Serrado on the north coast of the island has bookings at just 30% of occupancy this week.
‘A Difficult May For Regional Hotels – Hotel prices on Madeira dropped around 11.22% during the month’. All the indicators for the month showed varying negatives, compared to May 2008. The summary of market indicators was released by TTT Hotel Monitor of the Association of Hotels of Portugal (AHP). In percentage terms, the average price per room available fell 11.22%, the occupancy rate per room showed a negative of 4.71% and the average price per room sold also registered a decrease of 6.83%. In Portugal as a whole, the May to May comparison showed a fall of 11.76% in occupancy, and a fall of 17.52% in the average revenue per room.
‘Gripe A Attacks Cruise Ship That Visits Madeira – The ship has a visit scheduled for Funchal on 2nd December’. The French authorities lifted a quarantine yesterday afternoon due to swine flu (H1N1) for the 5,000 people who were on board the cruise ship "Voyager of the Seas" that docked in Marseilles. 3,600 passengers were allowed off the ship after Gripe A tests, but another 146 people (66 passengers, and 80 crew) who were infected, or had had contact with the infected, were kept on board.
‘Madeira Promotes Itself In The North Of Europe – Action that will support the creations of new flight routes of SATA to Madeira and that will inform people about the region’. Campaigns addressed at travel agents and tour operators, in Scandinavia (Denmark, Norway and Sweden) and Finland, will be held next month. The actions are being planned under the guidance of the Association for the Promotion of Madeira, with the support of regional hotels and travel agents, and is in the form of a ‘road show’, in the cities of Helsinki, Oslo, Stockholm and Copenhagen. SATA (the Azores based airline) has already set up new flights from Stockholm and Copenhagen, and it is hoped that the road shows will stimulate new initiatives. The four countries are perceived to be amongst those less affected by the crisis in tourism terms.
