Brava: Touristic developments without reservations for the festive season due to the crisis and travel irregularity

The hotels and restaurants on the island of Brava are without reservations or requests for this festive season, “one of the many inconveniences” caused by the irregularities of the connecting trips to and from the island, and the crises.

These constraints have not allowed people to plan their holidays or parties on the island with the certainty that they will arrive in time at their places of origin and, in addition to transport, many of those responsible are aware that the current situation is also conditioning these activities. .

In a round, Inforpress found that the owners of tourist resorts on the island are “sad and discouraged”, with some stressing that in December they recorded “several losses” due to irregularities with trips to the island.

The only means of transport connecting Brava to the other islands is the boat, but in the last quarter of 2022 there were changes in the connection schedule, which “does not benefit Brava in any way”, which brought “many constraints” not only for economic and tourist entrepreneurs, but for the entire community of Brave.

Paulo Senna, manager of one of the developments, told Inforpress that he even had some reservations, but they were not fulfilled due to uncertainties in maritime connections and some had flights scheduled to other stops from Fogo Island.

According to this official, when investing in this area, on an island where there are many constraints with connecting trips, it is necessary to have “a lot of courage and a fund”, because only Brava's clientele does not respond to the demand for commitments that must be settled monthly.

Another entrepreneur who was “outraged” is António de Pina, for whom there were “no reservations” during this period because “there is no guarantee of return trips”.

But, for the population of Brave, he announced that a group of young people from the island have already organized an event for New Year's Eve, with a musical show and other activities.

Marco Agostino Giandinoto said that he has no reservations and didn't even insist on working towards the end of the year because of the constraints of maritime connections, after the "New Year's Eve" parties, the restaurants are all closed and with some surprises regarding lunch and dinner for his customers.

Hence, he underlined that he made a point of working only for Christmas and the last customers he has in his establishment are traveling this Saturday.

In relation to the other existing establishments on the island, the situation is the same and the uncertainty of when the situation will improve is reigning in this and in the various sectors of activity that depend on connections with the other islands, but also the crisis that the world is going through imposed by the covid-19 pandemic and the war caused by the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.

Even on the streets of the island, movement is “very weak”, even at the door of the Post Office and commercial banks where normally, in previous years, it was usual to have queues waiting to collect remittances from abroad.