The President of the Portuguese Tourism Confederation claims that an airport urgently is needed at the Montijo air base.
"I would venture to say that we're probably the best destination in the world with the worst airport in the world," warns Francisco Calheiros, in an interview with TSF and Dinheiro Vivo.
The 'best destination' distinction received by Portugal this month in the World Travel Awards (HERE) exposes "an unbelievable, unacceptable contradiction," according to the tourism chief, who is worried about the current overcrowding at Lisbon’s Humberto Delgado airport.
The situation at Lisbon's airport "is the main problem for Portuguese tourism," and even though the Government currently is negotiating with Vinci, owner of ANA - Aeroportos de Portugal, for a second airport at the Montijo airbase, there is still no go-ahead.
Calheiros applauds the efforts of several entities to improve Lisbon's airport, such as ANA, TAP and air traffic control, but warns that "they are all patches" in the face of a situation that is harming the economy.
The president of the Tourism Confederation is going to keep the pressure on over Montijo, "Any meeting from now on, whether at a congress, or at a Permanent Commission for Social Dialogue, at any meeting, I'm going to introduce the theme of the airport."
Francisco Calheiros predicts that tourism will continue to grow in Portugal, even though, for the first time in recent years, there has been a fall of 0.5% in the number of overnight stays between January and September.
"I still believe that there will be growth, I do not know if it will be in 2019, but we have all the conditions for that to happen."
In addition to the airport problem, the Confederation president attributes the slowdown of the sector to Brexit and the rebirth of competing markets in North Africa, Turkey and Greece.
