“This year we have fewer foreigners because of the TAP strike. And as here in the south of the town we have more hotel tourists, business is down”, shop- keeper Bryan Crispim told the Lusa News Agency.
The manager of a family store, he said that “there are more people wandering around, than those actually buying things”.
A few doors up, Diogo Borralho confirmed that everything was “still very calm” as far as the business was going, but hoped this would pick up “but it will be less than in previous years because the extreme heat keeps people away from the stores”.
Another store keeper, José Maria Vieira (85) said “people can’t buy like they used to because of the crisis” and that “they now look for poorer quality and prefer the items in the Chinese shops”.
He said that there was “no real reduction in the number of pilgrims”, but business “is well down on what it was two decades ago”. TPN/Lusa