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Discounts of up to 25%, complimentary massages and closing the heated pools during the low season are some of the creative devices being used by the Algarve luxury hoteliers to get round the crisis. To deal with the global financial and economic crisis, most of the Algarve’s luxury hotels are finding creative ways of ensuring that they have guests throughout the year and of saving power to keep the bills down.

At the new Hilton "As Cascatas Golf Resort" in Vilamoura, one of the successful policies has been to give a discount for early bookings, or combinations of price reductions and upgrades in rooms, offering half board instead of just breakfast.

Michael Borges, the Hilton’s Head of Sales, told the Lusa agency that early bookings had been hugely successful with British tourists and he said that was how that had got a lot of reservations for the summer of 2009.

Free golf equipment

Seven-night packages for golfers with free breakfasts, a special dinner, three tee-offs per day and complimentary caddies or buggies are other examples of the Hilton group’s special packages.

The Hilton is also reusing the water that is left over from congresses and conferences for watering plants, Michael Borges said, adding that in addition to reducing costs the hotel was also being environmentally friendly.

Elidérico Viegas, president of AHETA, the Algarve Association of Hotels and Tourist Enterprises, told the Lusa agency that they were going through a “crisis of the rich” as evidenced by the fall in demand by tourists for 5-star hotels.

Crisis affecting 5-star hotels the most

In December 2008, AHETA announced that the Algarve recorded a drop of 5.7% in 2008 as compared with 2007 and that the outlook for 2009 was that demand for hotels would continue to fall, estimating that there could be a possible fall of 2%, which now appears to have been on the conservative side.

At the Hotel Lake Resort & Spa, Vilamoura, the formula for overcoming the crisis involves packages for festive periods at lower prices.

A source at the Lake Resort’s marketing department said that they had special offers for Christmas, the New Year and Carnival, adding that the market continued to be receptive to these special offers but they were perhaps selling them at a lower price. The source said they could also offer a dinner with a concert.

The Grande Real Santa Eulália Resort & Hotel Spa in Albufeira is banking on talassotherapy cures (sea-water treatments), on themed weeks and discounts on stays to increase their occupancy rates. Lourenço Ribeiro of the Real Santa Eulália said that they had been giving discounts of 15% before, and now this had gone up to 25%. They had also introduced other types of offers with 15 themed weeks at attractive prices.

source: http://www.algarveobserver.com