Until two weeks ago, Raissa Moura and her co-workers at the reception desk of the Pine Cliffs Resort were feeling optimistic that life was returning to normal along Portugal’s southern coast.
The previous year, as the pandemic halted travel, they had fretted over the desolation of the usually bustling, 1,300-bed hotel and villa complex. They had suffered layoffs and worked weeks on end inside an eerily quiet lobby processing cancellations. Outside, foxes brazenly wandered the abandoned grounds.
But this summer was already shaping up nicely in the Algarve, Portugal’s leading tourist destination. Cases of COVID-19 had dropped so dramatically that Britain had designated Portugal a so-called green country, permitting its citizens to visit without having to quarantine on return. The sun loungers arrayed beneath the pine trees were full of people hoisting cocktails. The resort’s eight swimming pools echoed with the sounds of splashing children.