PortoBay to Open Three New Hotels in Porto, Funchal and Algarve

24 November 2017

António Trindade, president and CEO of the hotel operator based in Madeira, said the group would end 2017 with a turnover of €80 million.

With hotel units in Madeira, Lisbon, Algarve and Brazil, the PortoBay group has three new projects under development in its portfolio which will move ahead in Funchal, Porto and the Algarve, Mr Trindade told the Jornal Econômico.

The executive stated that the group had seen some very positive performance, and added that PortoBay plans to close 2017 with a turnover of 80 million euros.

By late 2018, the hotel chain hopes to open a five-star hotel in Porto, at the Rua das Flores. Also, next year, work will begin on the construction of a new hotel unit in the Algarve, where the brand already operates the PortoBay Falésia.

“The project for the Algarve has 260 rooms. Construction will go ahead in 2018 and will be completed within two years,” the executive stated.

The group is preparing another investment in Funchal’s historic centre. After the Porto Santa Maria hotel, a 146-room city resort concept opened in 2000, the PortoBay Old Town, a 4-star hotel with 60 rooms located in the old town, is slated to be their next base of operations in the city.

Responsible for the management of 12 hotel units in Portugal and three units in Brazil, the PortoBay Group – which recently underwent a re-branding, renaming itself PortoBay Hotels & Resorts – opened its first hotel in 1988 in Funchal, the Suite Hotel Eden Mar.

In 2007, the brand expanded to Brazil with PortoBay Búzios, and just a year later it entered the Portuguese mainland with the PortoBay Falésia, in the Algarve. In February of 2015, the group’s first hotel in Lisbon, PortoBay Liberdade, opened and in 2016, the PortoBay Marquês was inaugurated in the capital city, a place that Antonio Trindade believes that is differentiated from other European capitals by its light, “the pleasant form in which locals receive visitors” and “the monumentality of its rich history.”

23 luxury suites complement the Cliff Bay

In addition to hotels in Funchal, Porto and Algarve, the PortoBay group also has a complex of 23 luxury suites next to the emblematic The Cliff Bay hotel in Madeira, under construction.

The complex, in an area of 6,000 sqm is due to open in November 2018. According to Antônio Trindade, “the new suites constitute an upgrade of the 5-star product in Madeira” and will allow the preservation of two colonial-style manor houses located on the ground that the group bought ten years ago south of the Estrada Monumental on the island’s capital.

The new suites will have the hotel’s amenities at their service but will have additional features that will be “in a superior range to the Cliff Bay units,” including a restaurant and lounge that will be open to the public.

With this new investment, the PortoBay group, which already employs around 600 people in Madeira, will create another fifteen jobs in the region.

As for the total number of beds under the group’s management, the three new hotels and the 5-star ‘Les Suites at The Cliff Bay’ complex represent an increase of 400 beds. The group currently has a total of approximately 3,050 beds in the 4 and 5-star segments.

Original Story: Jornal Econômico – Patrícia Gaspar

Translation: Richard Turner