Speaking to Lusa, businessman Carlos Vieira, a member of the board of directors of the Portuguese Association of Congress, Tourist Entertainment and Events Companies (APECATE), explained that there was an “exponential increase” in visits, partly because more and more people started renting non-motorized means for this purpose.

“There has never been so much turnout. In the last two years the influx has grown exponentially and, of course, there have started to be problems, as well as a very large weight on the cave”, he acknowledged, considering that the problems were due to conflicts in access with canoes, kayaks or paddle boards, as well as vessels.

With the number of visitors increasing in a disorderly manner, the authorities decided to create a working group to regulate access to one of the most visited caves in the region, which has already produced a report whose proposals, which were also debated with APECATE, are under consideration and in public consultation until February 21st.

According to Carlos Vieira, the entry of the resigning Government into management and the approach of the high season do not allow the definition of occupancy rates and other matters through a more complete process, which is why the authorities must produce a notice with simple rules to regulate the activity until summer.

The person responsible considers that rules such as prohibiting disembarkation in the cave, limiting visiting time or creating access channels for boats, different from those used by kayaks or paddle boards, are “consensual” and should be applied through the publication of a notice.

“Why is there so much confusion in the cave? There is a lot of confusion because there is a huge amount of traffic, everyone wants to go to the caves and there has started to be a lot of non-motorised equipment, rented to third parties, without a guide, without any training”, he argued.

According to the businessman, who has worked in the maritime-tourist sector in Albufeira, in the district of Faro, for more than 30 years, most of these visitors “don't know how to kayak” and, in “situations where there are rocks, sea ​​and waves, problems eventually arise.”

Carlos Vieira observed that, in the last two years, the promotion given to the Algarve region has increased interest in visiting the Benagil caves, having also increased the number of operators who have registered in the National Register of Tourist Entertainment Agents, in Tourism of Portugal.

“In three to four months we couldn’t do much more than we did”, he stated, stressing that “what is expected is that in fact there are already some measures to be implemented this year, through a notice issued by some entities, namely the Captaincy, APA [Portuguese Environment Agency], ICNF [Institute for Nature and Forest Conservation] and the municipality of Lagoa”.

Carlos Vieira clarified that APECATE is “a supporter of rules” and “conditions that improve security and visitation”, but also allows “to provide more quality to the customer”, and rejects “anything that is bureaucracy” and rules that cause “difficulty management” without benefiting the quality of visits to the caves and safety.

The association leader explained that the time to develop access rules was already “very short” and considered it “almost impossible” to carry out an assessment of the cave’s load capacity and test this capacity on site in three to four months.

Therefore, Carlos Vieira believes that a set of “simple measures” will be adopted, “in the first phase”, to “organise and order the visitation” and guarantee the operation until the summer, carrying out, in a later phase, and already with a new Government in office, a more complete work that defines loads and also introduces modifications that operators find necessary in practice to introduce.


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