Portugal’s tourism lost €2Bn due to lack of airport capacity
Portugal’s Confederation of Tourism says Portugal has lost over €2Bn because of a lack of airport capacity at Lisbon’s Humberto Delgado International Airport.
Forbes reports that the Confederação do Turismo de Portugal (CTP) has applauded the Prime Minister Luís Montenegro’s announcement that the new airport will be located at Alcochete, 4.2 km from Lisbon.
The amount in lost tourism revenues was calculated by the confederation led by Francisco Calheiros from July 14, 2022, using a counter placed on the entity’s website and on the second circular, a ring road by Lisbon airport, that was visible to thousands of drivers going to and from the airport and the capital each day.
The aim was to draw attention to the losses that Portugal’s tourism sector has lost in revenues because of a lack of a decision-making over the site of the new airport.
In a statement yesterday, the CTP applauded the decision announced by the government that has “confirmed the choice of Alcochete as the location of the new international airport for the Lisbon region since expansion works on the existing facility will now advance taking into consideration that the new airport will take up to 10 years to complete.”
Francisco Calheiros added that the “construction of a new Lisbon airport had been called for by the confederation that represents tourism companies in Portugal for years, and “we congratulate (the government) that a decision has been finally announced.”
The CTP president said that he only hoped that this was “a final decision and that it would not be jeopardised by other (future) governments, something that we have unfortunately seen in recent years.”
On the decision to undertake expansion works at the existing airport to increase existing capacity, Francisco Calheiros said: “If at last that is now possible, why wasn’t it before? At the time we could have increased the number of slots available and passenger numbers at Humberto Delgado, as well as avoiding the revenues lost.”
