One of the world’s most luxurious entertainment and leisure chains, Nikki Beach, has signed a deal to open a beach club next to Portimão Marina in May. Since the Nikki Beach brand was established 10 years ago in Miami, Florida, it has become a preferred destination for famous people, including Donald Trump and U2’s Bono, to relax and enjoy the area.

There will be a competition to get schools to paint trees made of PVC to be displayed in the Terreiro do Paço in Lisbon. The idea is to repeat the success of the Cow Parade, which travelled all over the country. A white tree made of plastic (PVC) about a metre and a half high, can now start to be painted by pupils at the Bernardo Passos secondary school EB2,3 in São Brás de Alportel. It was the first of a set of 77 trees to be delivered to schools which joined in the “Tree Parade” competition all over the country.

The government, in a partnership with the Portuguese Tourism Institute, last Friday announced the creation of a new brand which symbolises the new investment programme for the south of the country, ‘Allgarve’. At the opening of the Algarve Tourism Fair, which took place last weekend at the Parque das Nações in Lisbon, the Minister of the Economy and Tourism, Manuel Pinho, inaugurated the public presentation of the new brand following the announcement of an investment of 6 million euros for the Algarve region.

Work on the construction of the super special stage in the Algarve Stadium started on Monday. The investment is worth some 400,000 euros. On Monday, the company Tecnovia began work on the circuit in the Algarve Stadium where the first and last stages of the Rally of Portugal will take place on 29th March and 1st April.

Algar, the company that collects solid waste in the Algarve, plans to make use of the wind in Barranco do Velho to generate power. The measure is being analysed as part of an agreement between ALGAR and the Institute of Mechanical Engineering and Industrial Management, which provides for the installation of a monitoring station to assess the power generating capacity which could be set up at the land fill site.

The overall occupancy rate has gone up, as compared with the same period last year. There is a degree of optimism in the air about the forthcoming summer season. According to figures from AHETA, the Algarve Hotel and Tourist Resort Association, average occupancy per room in accommodation units in the Algarve in February was 49.1%, 1.7% higher than that recorded in the same month in 2006.