74% of tourism companies closed

Portugal’s tourism industry is one of the hardest hit sectors in the country as a result of Covid-19 with 74% of companies closed.

According to the latest data from AHRESP 30% of these companies including hotels, restaurants, guest houses, cafés, bars and leisure amenities were not able to pay their March salaries.
The alarming if expected numbers from the Portuguese Hotel & Restaurant Association on the impact of Covid-19 on the tourism sector as a whole and released on 3 April made pessimistic reading.

• 44% saw falls of over 80% in turnover compared to March 2019.
• 70% expect zero turnover for May 2020.
• 12% believe they will turnover €5,000 in May.
• 30% of companies won’t be able to pay their April salaries.
• 63% of companies won’t be able to pay their May salaries.
• 94% of companies have not made redundancies.
• 44% have scrapped a particular job function.
• 49% will press ahead with lay-offs.
• 70% say they will not be able to pay salaries in April if Social Security doesn’t intervene in time.
• 74% state that the lay-off regime will involve 100% of their staff.
• 75% will put their staff on total lay-off.
• 18% will reduce working hours
• 7% will use both reduced working hours and lay-off depending on the function.

The AHRESP also states that 94% of companies did not lay people off in March. Of the 6% that did so, 44% stated that they had laid off 1 staff member.
On the issue of support from the Government, 77% of companies did not apply for it and of the 23% that did, they went via the Turismo de Portugal (Tourist Board) help line (56%) while the ones that have applied for support state the amount they will receive is not enough to meet the company’s needs. (58%).