Jorge Rebelo de Almeida's position was expressed to journalists at a press conference held at the southern Spanish unit, located in the municipality of Ayamonte, province of Huelva, about 10 kilometers from the Guadiana international bridge, which connects Andalusia to the Algarve, within the scope of the activities that the group prepared for the inauguration of the unit.

"It is a great joy for us to be here at this hotel today, for many years we at Vila Galé had the great desire to enter Spain, we did many experiments and the first one that worked was this one", said the president of the Portuguese hotel group, assuring that the expansion in Spain "will not stop here".

Jorge Rebelo de Almeida highlighted the importance of choosing Andalusia for the group's entry into Spain, in a partnership with Saint Croix HI, the owner of the property, which implies the "payment of rent", the value of which he did not specify, within the scope of a partnership contract established "for 10 years, renewable".

One of the group's goals for the hotel in Isla Canela is to reduce the time the unit closes in the winter, contrary to the trend of other hotels in the area, which close in October and only reopen in April/May, the businessman said, clarifying that the goal is to close only two months a year, in December and January.

The president of the Vila Galé group recalled the Arab heritage in Andalusia and in Al-Andaluz, the name given to the territory occupied by the Arabs until the 14th century and which also covered the south of Portugal, to highlight that the building of the new hotel unit has a "very beautiful architectural project, with Arab influence".

"We changed the entire decoration, because the hotel was already a few years old, and today it has an image that is appropriate to the architectural project, with Arab influence", considered the Portuguese businessman, emphasizing that Arab decoration is usually "very heavy" and has "a lot of information, a lot of gilding", and the work done maintained "Arab references", but "simpler" and "lighter".

The group currently has "44 hotels, 32 of which are in Portugal", and has a "strong presence" in Brazil, with "about 10,000 beds", said the leader of Vila Galé, which in 2023 obtained total revenues of 275 million euros.

"We are also in the entire [Brazilian] northeast and we go as far as Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, and now this year we are preparing two more to open, one this year and another next year, in April", he added, referring respectively to the units planned for the localities of Ouro Preto, in the state of Minas Gerais, and Cumbuco, in the state of Ceará.

Jorge Rebelo de Almeida stressed that the hotel project in Ouro Preto will allow the recovery of a historic building, where the first Portuguese cavalry regiment was installed in Brazil, in 1777, and recalled that Vila Galé is also already present in Cuba, a country that is in a "difficult phase, with many economic difficulties" and supply, due to the blockade imposed by the United States.

"We would now very much like, in Spain, to go up a little, we are in the south and we want to go through Seville, which is a city that enchants me, very beautiful, and where we would like to have a presence, and of course Madrid, which is also the capital and would be important for us", he said, without specifying a calendar and considering, like the presence in Andalusia, "it will be easier to follow the opportunities" in the future.

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