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Tourist Housing: 50% of the Local Accommodations Have Been Registered in the Last Two Years

12 January 2018

The Secretary of State for Tourism, Ana Mendes Godinho, revealed that “50% of the tourist entertainment companies and 50% of the Local Accommodation units (AL) registered in Portugal appeared in 2016 and 2017.”

According to the minister, who spoke at the inauguration of the Portuguese Association of Travel and Tourism Agencies (APAVT), all the numbers for the [tourism] sector up to October 2017 are “great” and demonstrate “the dynamism” that the country is experiencing. Secretary Godinho also pointed out, for example, that “80 new hotels have appeared in the last two years” in Portugal and that there is an expectation of continued “growth over the next few years,” Lusa reported.

At the end of 2017, the president of the Portuguese Local Accommodation Association (ALEP), Eduardo Miranda, said that almost a third of the AL establishments registered in that year are “solely and exclusively” legalisations due to the obligation to provide registration numbers on electronic platforms.

“With the new legislation that forced platforms to require registration numbers, the number of legalised accommodations has grown dramatically. This year it is estimated that 6,500 of the 18,000 new openings were related solely and exclusively to the legalisation requirement. [This] was perhaps the most important legalisation measure ever put into effect,” Mr Miranda said.

According to data from the National Register of Local Accommodation Establishments (RNAL), made available by Turismo de Portugal, AL in Portugal has more than quadrupled in the last three years, going from about 13,000 registered establishments in 2014 to more than 55,000 today.

In the meantime, five related bills from different political groupings and parties were discussed in a plenary session of the National Assembly on January 5, having been submitted to the Committee on Environment, Spatial Planning, Decentralization, Local Power and Housing without a vote. At the end of the plenary debate, all the parties chose to send the decrees for discussion without any voting, for a term of 60 days.

Original Story: Idealista

Translation: Richard Turner