António Costa Silva was speaking at the 33rd National Congress of Hotels and Tourism, promoted by AHP, which is being held in Fátima.


The governor said that with the aim of helping tourism companies "to modernise and develop" their properties, enabling "sale and leaseback," a transaction in which a company sells its property and then rents it out.


Earlier, the president of the Associação da Hotelaria de Portugal (AHP), Bernardo Trindade, stressed that 2022 "has been exceptional" in the recovery of confidence, but that "realistically" tourism, the key to economic recovery, still needs to be helped.


The official recalled that even to beat revenue records in 2022 the war in Ukraine brought "such a degree of uncertainty in the construction of the tourism value chain" that it is not possible to say "what level of results" will close this year. In addition, "everything is more expensive", from the cost of labour, to electricity and gas, the food chain, and various services. These factors mean that the outlook remains "uncertain", he said.


"Therefore, Mr. Minister [of Economy], Mrs. Secretary of State [of Tourism], dear associates, we loyally want to continue to be partners and contributors to this economic and social recovery of the country, but realistically we have to be helped," said Bernardo Trindade, addressing, in particular, the degradation of the financial autonomy of hotel companies during the pandemic. Trindade warned that it was necessary to extend the maturities of credit lines to support Covid-19, which in many cases are now coming to an end.


About the 3,000 million euro package of support for businesses to cope with the increase in electricity and gas bills that the prime minister, António Costa, announced, Bernardo Trindade said that AHP's expectation is that they will be "included in that aid package”.