Welcome to the Covid Lisbon episode of Fawlty Towers

We are pretty sure that the people behind the programs only had the best intentions. But they don’t necessarily know how to run a small business in Tourism Industry.

Unlike most other SMEs hotels like our don’t know what happens, when we open our doors. We need guests. To get guests we need travelers which is a crucial problem for the whole industry:

• Travellers have been hit financially by the crisis and have to get their economy back on track before they start traveling again.
• Portugal is opening up. But a lot of our guests come from parts of the world that are seriously hid by the virus and are more or less closed. It’s uncertain when they will open their borders. And most of the domestic travelers stay with family and friends. 
• And how and where will they Travel? The good thing about the Covid Crises is that it has opened people’s eyes to the world’s climate problems. People all over the world have not only seen the clear blue sky for months. They appreciate it. So the question is: Do they appreciate it enough to change their travel behaviour? What we hear from Denmark, the new trend is going towards exotic domestic destinations easy to reach by low carbon means of transportation.
• Travelers who don’t mind flying – or need to fly because of their work – are facing other and very serious problems. The most important Airlines for Portugal have either closed down completely OR reduced their direct traffic to/from Lisbon considerably.
• You can get from Northern Europe to Lisbon. BUT it takes at least a day – and the price is at least the double of the price in February – so Lisbon as a weekend destination –  a very important part of our business – will be a ‘challenge’.  
• Finally: You don’t have to be a professor in Business to figure this out: The previous years increase in Hotel Beds combined with upcoming decrease in visitors will pressure the Hotel Prices. In other words – the profit per guest will go down. 

Add to all this a potential financial crises that will hit Portugal when people who have invested in real estate in recent years can’t pay their mortgage because the income the expect from AirBnB and similar short term rentals is gone. Then the banks will start panicking – and who knows what happens then. 

In other words – the whole travel industry is so chaotic that nobody on this planet knows when people will start travelling again and how and where!