A tourism chief in the Portuguese Algarve has defended the country’s record in containing Covid-19 amid speculation that the UK could reimpose quarantine restrictions on returning holidaymakers from Saturday.
Algarve Tourism Bureau executive director Hugo Nascimento was speaking just over a week after Portugal was added to the UK’s safe travel corridor list, triggering a return of flights to Faro from Tui and expanded flying programmes from the likes of Jet2 and Ryanair.
The Algarve has seen minimal cases of the virus compared with spikes around the capital Lisbon at a time when testing is being stepped up across the country.
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Nascimento admitted the impact of the quarantine rules over the summer peak had a “huge” impact on the local tourism sector but that many British people had continued to travel as flights were maintained by the likes of British Airways and Ryanair.
“We are quite dependent on the a British market, less than ten years ago, but it is still significant. Places like Albufeira, which is very focused on the British market, felt it in particular.
“But a lot of British kept coming and when they came they felt more safe than back home. Only the package holiday companies stopped flying.”
Jet2 remains the market leader in UK operators into Faro airport following the demise of Thomas Cook almost a year ago, with a share of around 70%, while Tui has also been increasing its capacity.
Airport testing could be one solution to overcome the need for countrywide quarantine limits but the biggest issue is people being scared to travel because they don’t know what is going to happen and how it is going to affect them, according to Nascimento.
“Portugal and the Algarve adopted very early measures and all the cases were dealt with very quickly. Everyone is following the rules,” he added while insisting that it would be “unfair” for the country to placed back on the UK quarantine list.
“We have the same population as Greece but we test four times more – if you don’t test you don’t have cases. The criteria should be based not only on the number of people but also the number of tests you are doing.”
“We have the science behind it, we have very low numbers of deaths on the Algarve – 15 until two more three weeks ago to give 17 in total since March and all above 70 years old.”
Confidence in the region was being displayed by the staging of a Formula 1 motor racing Grand Prix in Portimao on October 25 and a Moto GP motorcycle race on November 22, Nascimento pointed out.
More: IAG boss warns of ‘chaos and hardship’ if quarantine rule returns for Portugal
