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Andrew Coutts has lived in Portugal for 20 years and has worked on “both sides of the table”, developing investment and in an advisory capacity for some of the biggest names in the tourism and residential tourism industry. On his CV are names such as the Champalimaud family and Quinta da Marinha, for which Andrew was the company’s managing director. He founded the ILM Group in 1999.

Four years ago a similar market feasibility study was carried out by the group for the residential tourism sector. This was followed by a tourism research study specifically concentrated on the five-star sector.

This year the Research Note is focusing on four and five-star hotels in the Algarve.

As the previous studies were “well received by hoteliers, this year we decided to repeat the exercise but opening it up to four star hotels, which was a bit of a challenge as there’s a lot of them” Mr. Coutts quipped, adding “It’s quite a task”.

Key performance indicators will include occupation and price rates, nationalities, revenue and expenditure, information that the ILM Group hopes hoteliers will supply on a basis of trust.

The Research Note differs from statistics supplied from other associations as it is based on figures supplied “straight from the horses’ mouth”.

“We can therefore do a much deeper analysis”, he explained, stressing that the outcome is “factual and not fictional, from primary source data and is horribly objective”.

Mr. Coutts said the Research Note aimed to produce “real, interesting data that can be used by the sector and the trade”.

“I hope the findings will be surprising and positive” he said.

Around 40 of the Algarve’s managing directors and representatives from four and five star hotels were invited to the get-together, which was held at the Quinta do Barranco Longo in Algoz.

The working wine farm, which is currently mid-harvest, was an unusual choice of location for the event, but proved a popular alternative to the norm.

An equally innovative spread was created by renowned chef Jonnie Pratt, of Almancil’s Bistro des Z’Artes, using only fresh, local produce from Loulé market.

Ahead of the soirée Mr. Coutts told The Portugal News “the majority of the people invited have said they would turn up and most have already committed to participating in the survey”.

It is a well documented fact that in recent times the Algarve has suffered a significant blow to its once thriving tourism industry. The global economic crisis led to purse-strings being tightened all over the world, forcing many to shelve holidays as a dispensable luxury.

Conflicting data regarding performance results in the Algarve left little doubt that 2010 would be a defining year.

According to Andrew Coutts, despite many investors opting to put their projects on hold for the time being, the Algarve remains “without doubt” a place that is worthy of investment.

“The Algarve as a product has not changed, but on the demand side things have been really tough for the past three years”.

He stressed that “due to price-driven choices” people are trying out new destinations on “the other side of the Mediterranean”.

More specifically, “Turkey had a major impact on the Algarve this summer – we’ll see how much once we’ve done the analysis”.

“The Algarve is horribly reliant on the UK market but it’s really tough up there right now”, he added, explaining how, along with other global incidents that had an impact on the international economy, such as the BP oil spill, “its no wonder that Portugal has been affected the way it has”.

Regarding the regional tourism sector, he advised, “We need to market ourselves far more aggressively, not just to the UK but also to other source markets”.

“We have to say the Algarve is very much here, we have the beaches and the golf courses but there are other attractions to the Algarve that have been forgotten”.