Madeira News Blog

(23rd June). ‘Tax Revenues Fall More Than 20% . In the first five months there was a worsening of the deficit’. Portugal collected 20.7% less in the first 5 months of this year in tax revenues, than in the same period in 2008, according to data from the Ministry of Finance, pointing to a provisional deficit of €4.3 billion.

Meanwhile prices in industrial production for Portugal fell 5.1%, comparing May this year with May last year. Part of the reason is the fall in energy prices.

(22nd June). ‘Here It comes The 20th Edition Of The 100 Biggest And Best Companies’. This is the annual ceremony to recognise companies that have performed well or achieved something special in production growth, productivity, investment, or even in the well-being of Madeira in general. It is organised by the Diário de Notícias and Previsão, with the involvement of other organisations and individuals. The Diário understandably gives it a lot of coverage over the coming weeks (if previous years are anything to go by), much of it on the front page as a means of publicity, but I will not give it nearly as much coverage, at least until those to be distinguished have been identified and announced.

(23rd June). ‘BinterCanarias Baptises ATR72 With The Name Madeira – The Spanish airline recognises the importance of the Madeira market’. The new plane will take on the route twice weekly between the two archipelagos starting on Thursday at 1pm, and again on Sundays connecting direct Gran Canaria, with the guarantee of connections to most of the other islands, and also two cities in Morocco. It was built by the European Consortium in France and Italy. This Summer connection has been operating since 2004.

(22nd June). ‘Queen Victoria Comes At The Year End – There will be 7 cruise ships bringing over 10,000 passengers to Madeira’. The night of São Silvestre this year will be able to count on 7 cruise ships, the highlight being the new British owned Queen Victoria. Another new ship to come is the ‘AIDAluna’. Both will arrive on the 30th December and stay over to see in the new year. Others already confirmed are the ‘Oriana’, the ‘Boudicca’, the ‘Princess Danae’, the ‘Saga Ruby’, and the ‘Amadea’. For four of them it will be the first time here to see in the new year. I was surprised to learn that they will only have a total of 10,000 passengers, but the Diário gives the passenger capacity of each ship, and sure enough it is correct. There will be around 3,500 crew on top of that though.

(21st June). ‘BELEZA Launches New Transport Service Via Armas – The service allows combined transportation and costs €40 per cubic meter’. The continental company ‘Transportes Beleza’ in partnership with a company on Madeira, ‘Artur Mudanças’, has launched the new service for the movement of goods between Lisbon and Madeira, using the Armas ferry service on the ‘Volcán de Tijarafe’. At present the service is of particular interest for food distribution, especially fresh vegetables and fruit. The vehicle used has the capacity for up to 90 cubic metres, and the low price of €40 per m3, is 30 to 40% cheaper than the current means of transport, yet guaranteeing speed of delivery, and for an extra charge door to door delivery. At the moment there will be just the once a week service, but if demand is sufficient the company will provide another vehicle. I wish that had been around a few years ago, I would have saved myself a fortune when I moved here.

‘Armas Brings Canaries And Coaches – The holiday packages sold on the Canary Islands always come up with new ideas’. With the arrival of Summer and the holiday season, the number of tourists who use the sea ferry links between the Canary Islands and Madeira, and the link with the port of Portimão in southern Portugal, has started to show a natural growth. The arrival of the ‘Volcán de Tijarafe’ yesterday brought 305 passengers, 260 of which are in groups staying in Funchal hotels on package deals. The ferry also brought 4 coaches to transport the 260 holidaymakers during their visit, and hired additional transport on Madeira. The tourists return tomorrow evening on the same ferry. It’s hard to believe that it would be cheaper to bring transport from the Canary islands along with the cost of drivers, rather than hire coaches here, and there must be plenty of coaches with nothing better to do in these times of low tourism here.

(19th June). ‘Madeira : Tourism Excellency In The Balance’. Madeira is selling itself cheap, with the best destination in Portugal offering hotel room prices 17% lower than the national average. "It’s an alarming number". It shows that Madeira is a long way from selling its product at a price that represents the quality it says it has. In fact only the Algarve sells its hotel rooms cheaper. However Madeira does have the best hotel occupancy rate in Portugal. The average price of the rooms in March was €58.80, €13.70 below the national average, through attempts to resist the crisis through a dramatic fall in prices. During Carnival, the average hotel prices here were even lower at €51 a room per night. Loads and loads of statistics and comparisons follow, and the point being made is easy to see, but for me hard to reconcile with the headline. Fair play to all concerned here in offering the most competitive prices for high quality hotels to survive the tourism shortages, but where does that lead to a threat to quality? Staff cuts maybe? Or is the article saying that people will look at the prices and say that ‘at that price, the quality can’t be much good’, and opt for somewhere else? The level of quality is determined by the hotel management, and is measured by third party organisations from all over the place, so isn’t that what people will see, the number of STARS it has, alongside a very reasonable price?

The numbers shown on the illustration are prices in Euros.

(20th June). ‘IRS & Social Security In The Origin Of Closure Of Companies – Debts and frauds identified by the IRS and Social Security are involved in a third of all insolvencies’. The IRS has been getting a lot tougher with companies of late, and audits that reveal financial discrepancies often end up with the closure of the company, and often provides a warning sign for administrators. The tax authorities, social security and banks are treated as the main creditors of companies in financial difficulties, and get priority over other creditors when a company goes into liquidation.