Local accommodation: from paradise to hell - the impact of Covid 19 and strategies to recover the investment, in Portugal

Abstract

This study seeks to fill the epistemological gap regarding the impact of Covid 19 on local accommodation. The growth of Local Accommodation led to some good and bad results: for once, the old buildings were rebuilt as the owners saw a way to recover the investment, and some families found a way to increase their income, and on the other hand, the exponential growth created severe dangers to municipal institutions: the risk of ‘desertification’ of the center by local citizens, rent pressure, social polarization, amongst other risks, which led to the “gentrification phenomenon”.

This pandemic situation brought the real destruction of this accommodation sector, as the fear of travelling, besides the cancelation of flights and sanitary restrictions change the face of tourism sector and the owners of local accommodation places struggle to survive. On the course of this study we propose to find some ways out of hell that step into this sector.