Portugal’s National Newspaper in English

THE PORTUGAL

19 Jan 2013 • Edition Nº 1200 • !1.50 inc. IVA • Publisher: Paul Allen-Luckman • Editor: Brendan de Beer • www.theportugalnews.com

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48

PessimisticPortugal

Health chief’s flujab call

Ryanair aiminghigh inPortugal

Lisbon Footballfrenzy

7

Thousands joincause to save‘killer’ pitbull

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our networksee p.20

Silver lining to economic storm cloud as Portugalgears up for inaugural international luxury fair

The picturesque f ishing vi l lage of Ferragudo wil l soon be welcoming theThe picturesque f ishing vi l lage of Ferragudo wil l soon be welcoming theThe picturesque f ishing vi l lage of Ferragudo wil l soon be welcoming theThe picturesque f ishing vi l lage of Ferragudo wil l soon be welcoming theThe picturesque f ishing vi l lage of Ferragudo wil l soon be welcoming theworld’s el i te to a premier luxury l i festyle event taking place in the Aradeworld’s el i te to a premier luxury l i festyle event taking place in the Aradeworld’s el i te to a premier luxury l i festyle event taking place in the Aradeworld’s el i te to a premier luxury l i festyle event taking place in the Aradeworld’s el i te to a premier luxury l i festyle event taking place in the Arade

Pavil ion, in Apri l .Pavil ion, in Apri l .Pavil ion, in Apri l .Pavil ion, in Apri l .Pavil ion, in Apri l .

LUXURY SPOTLIGHTON ALGARVE Full story, see p.2

The Portugal News • 19 Jan 20132 NEWSNEWSNEWSNEWSNEWS

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Carrie-Marie BratleyLuxury spotlighton Algarve

Weather – wetand windyweekendMainland Portugal will be subject to strong winds this

weekend, especially on Saturday, which will be

accompanied by scattered showers from north to

south.

Lisbon: The Portuguesecapital will record strongwinds starting Friday evening,expected to reach gale forceproportions (80km/h) bynoon on Saturday. While ex-tended forecasts point toshowers for Lisbon until theend of the month, only scat-tered showers arepredicted fornext week, which is expectedto bring with it cooler tem-peratures.

Algarve: The weather insouthern Portugal will sharesimilar trends to that experi-enced in the north, with galeforce winds also forecast to hit

the southern coast during theearly hours of Saturday morn-ing, easing later that evening.Thermometers will remainslightly above seasonal aver-ages, before dropping at thestart of next week.

The North: The north willnot be as windy as other partsin the south, but heavy rainfallis expected to cause concern atthe start of the weekend, withclose to 50mm of rainfall ex-pected on Friday evening.Thermometers will recordsteady drops, and are expectedto reach sub-zero minimumsby the end of next week.

Portugal has been given a massive vote of confidence as

the country’s first international luxury lifestyle event,

which expects to draw hundreds of high rollers from

across the globe to the Algarve’s Arade Pavilion, in the

municipality of Lagoa, has been confirmed for April.

Between 25 and 30 April theArade Pavilion, on the outskirtsof the sleepy fishing village ofFerragudo (Lagoa) will beshowcasing the world’s premierluxury brands in an unprec-edented event loosely affiliatedto the internationally famous‘Millionaire’s Fair’.

It will also be welcoming bigspenders from around the globewho are looking to shop forhigh-end goods in the relativepeace and discretion that theAlgarve offers.

‘Carnival of Luxury’ isbrought to the Algarve by Vidade Luxe, a subsidiary of the HongKong-based Al Ark luxury con-cierge and lifestyle managementcompany which was founded bythe Aydelman family.

Inspired by the travelling ex-hibition launched in Amsterdama decade ago, the Algarve’s ‘Car-nival of Luxury’ “has evolved tomore than just a shopping expe-rience – we want it to be a show-case of everything Portugal hasto offer, and a bit of a statementreally, that Portugal is still openfor business and can be up therewith the best of other industry”explains entrepreneur Luís daSilva, of Vida de Luxe.

“There’s a global financial cri-sis and yet business still goes on,and actually, for this category ofpeople, business is booming”,he adds.

Drawing on contacts facili-tated through a sales and market-ing agreement with the ‘Million-aire’s Fair’, ‘Carnival ofLuxury’ aims to personalise theevent by showcasing the finestPortuguese products alongsideinternationally renownedbrands. “We have cherry-picked certain things, such as theCarnival theme. Think Carnivaland you think Brazil, but its ori-gins are actually Portuguese. Wewant to showcase things like thefinest shoes. Think shoes andyou think Italy, and actuallyPortugal is one of the leaders infashion design for shoes. And awhole range of things like this toshow what Portugal has to of-fer”, Vida de Luxe’s AdamTwidale told The PortugalNews on Wednesday.

Personalities and companiesfrom the USA, France, Israel,Russia, Spain, Germany, Hol-land and Portugal have alreadyput their names down for theevent.

As well as luxury cars, boats,fashion, jewellery, services, realestate, financial services andfood and beverages, among othergoods, the event will also show-case quality Portuguese prod-ucts ripe for picking on the in-ternational stage.

“There will be a massive sec-tion of international exhibitorstravelling from all over the world.

Our battle is to make sure we’vegot as many of the Portuguesebusinesses on board before wefill it entirely”, Mr. Twidalestresses.

“It’s hard to explain, cer-tainly to smaller local compa-nies, that they will never get aforum like this where it is thepeople travelling internation-ally just to come to this specificevent, and it is an opportunityfor some of thesmaller com-panies to reacha second leveland do interna-tional trade.We are keen toreally pushPortuguese ex-hibitors to usethis opportu-nity as a springboard for future success.”

With a strong marketing ma-chine behind them, “we wantquality [Portuguese] brands tocome and talk to us and thequicker the better, because weare bullish about making this asuccess”, Mr. da Silva says.

During the event there willalso be daily entertainment,ranging from Ballet to Bur-lesque, from trapeze artists togala dinners.

Day one, which falls on thenational 25 de Abril holiday, isset to be a private opening re-served for “Super-VIPS”; eliteguests, celebrities and dignitar-ies travelling to the event.

The remaining days are opento the general public, packagedas an “entire day out” featuringVIP treatment.

Monday 29 April will be‘Business Monday’, “which isa little bit more unique, it is a dayto do business, to make a state-ment and say Portugal really isopen for business”, AdamTwidale explains.

On ‘Business Monday’ a per-centage of any deals brokeredbetween companies will be do-nated to charity, as will five per-cent of the overall profit, to besplit between one national andone international charity.

“Everything has to resonatethrough Portugal as being some-thing that we’re not just dippinginto, grabbing the money that wecan get out of the economy andmoving on”, he reiterates.

Responding to detractors whoquestion the choice of Portugalas a platform for luxury, giventhe dire economic state it is cur-rently in, Mr. da Silva concedes“it is almost a contradiction,given the times we’re in, andthat’s the kind of boldness we’retrying to show; it will take ag-gressive courage and boldness toovercome some of the problemsPortugal is in.”

Twidale adds: “When we said

‘let’s do it in Portugal’, the firstreply we got from one of the ex-isting exhibitors was ‘you’llnever get it off the ground, you’llbe tied up with bureaucracy,deadlines, it’ll drag its feet’, andthat was one of our biggest driv-ing forces; we got the bit in ourteeth and we thought, we’ll bedamned if we let people thinkthat about Portugal.”

Both men are trying to be “re-alistic and con-servative” aboutestimated visi-tors figures.Though similarevents heldaround theworld can drawin excess of100,000 visi-tors, Vida deLuxe is aiming

for “between 750 and 1,000”visitors a day.

“We don’t think we’re beingthat ambitious. If we have a to-tal of between three to three anda half thousand visitors we’ll behappy”, da Silva reflects.

Hopeful that ‘Carnival deLuxe’ will become an annualevent, its organisers are also look-ing to host a number of otherevents throughout the rest of theyear, “all different to anythingseen in the Algarve”, and morespecifically during the region’squieter times.

Lagoa Mayor José Ináciotold The Portugal News thisweek that he thinks the initia-tive is a “very interesting” one,

and is pleased to be holding itin his county.

Joaquim Cabrita, LagoaCouncillor for Culture, speakingon behalf of the municipality,described the event as “ex-tremely important” for the pro-motion of the city and the re-gion, as well as for “the best ofwhat Portugal has to offer”, byplacing its finest products on theworld’s top-table.

“It is also very important forthe dynamics of the space inwhich it is to be held”, he said,highlighting the prestige of theArade Pavilion, which last win-ter was chosen by BMW as thestage on which to internationallylaunch its brand new 2012 3-Series model.

“It deserves all our supportand we hope it goes as well as theorganisers predict and expect itto.”

Praising the support and will-ing shown by the likes of au-thorities such as the nationaland regional tourist boards andLagoa council in holding theevent, its organisers are “veryconfident” that it will be a suc-cess; “If anything the challengeis to bring the national exhibi-tors on board and get them tobelieve it is possible and sensi-ble and cost-efficient to investin some marketing and brand-ing”, Luís da Silva reflects.

His views are echoed by Mr.Twidale, who concludes: “Por-tugal is not good at shoutingabout itself, so that is whatwe’re going to do.”

“There’s a globalfinancial crisis andyet business still goeson, and actually, forthis category ofpeople, business isbooming”, he adds.