Santa Maria, Cabo Verde, April 29, 2025 (Lusa) — On Tuesday, the Riu multinational group in Cabo Verde called for improvements in transport infrastructure, namely the airport on the island of Boa Vista, to expand in the archipelago.
‘We have suffered some transport problems in Cabo Verde, but we believe that there is an awareness of this and that work is actively being done to resolve it,’ said Hilda Teófilo, the group's public relations officer in Cabo Verde, during the presentation of the annual results in Santa Maria, on the island of Sal.
On the island of Boa Vista ‘it would be necessary for the airport to have the conditions to allow the arrival of other types of aeroplanes and for night operations’, so that it would be possible to ‘increase the chain's offer in the country’, she said, reiterating a request made in previous years.
‘In our conversations with the government, we believe that these issues are being analysed and that we will be able to discuss this topic again in the future,’ she added.
Although there is no concrete project yet, Hilda Teófilo explained that the group was studying the possibility of expanding its presence in Cabo Verde if the infrastructure and transport links evolve favourably.
In 2023, the Cabo Verde government awarded the public airport service concession to Cabo Verde Airports, a Vinci group company, to modernise and expand the four international airports (Boavista, Praia, Sal and São Vicente) and three aerodromes (Fogo, Maio and São Nicolau), as part of a 40-year investment plan.
The works advocated by the multinational hotel company are part of the investment plan.
The Riu group, founded in 1953 in Mallorca, Spain, is an international chain that currently operates 100 hotels in 20 countries.
In Cabo Verde, the group has three units on the island of Sal and three on Boa Vista (around 4,600 rooms) and received almost 400,000 guests in 2024, an increase of 7% compared to 2023, it announced today, also revealing growth in taxes paid and in the economic value distributed in local goods and services.
The hotel chain employs 3,120 Cabo Verde workers (225 in management positions) and today promised to continue investing in the country, both in modernising hotels and in social and environmental projects.
The results are in line with the sector's figures for 2024.
Last year, the archipelago registered a record of around 1.2 million guests, mostly concentrated in the resorts on the islands of Sal and Boa Vista.
The authorities hope that the growth will spread to the other islands and new segments, such as nature tourism.
*** Lusa travelled at the invitation of the Riu group *** RS/ADB // ADB.
Lusa
