Financial boom, cultural fears as cruise ships crowd Lisbon

A record seven cruise ships, carrying 15,000 people, arrived in Lisbon on one mid-September day. As the ships docked, tuk-tuk-style taxis lined up in a scene reminiscent of a town in Thailand — rather than one of Europe’s oldest cities.

“It’s going to be a day to remember,” said Jose Amaral, a 33-year-old tuk-tuk driver who charges about $63 for a one-hour ride in the auto-rickshaw style of taxi.

The more than $1.27 million the tourists spent in less than 24 hours on that cruise-rich day, Sept. 12, helped Portugal’s economy, and the government heralded the flood of tourists as a sign that Lisbon is the place to be. For some residents, however, such tourist flows risk ousting local inhabitants and traditional stores from the city’s ancient quarters as hostels and shops selling cheap trinkets and imitation handicrafts encroach — threatening the very identity of a city that traces its history back more than 2,000 years.

The changes are most evident in the downtown Baixa area, a grid of black and white cobblestone streets between two hills facing the River Tagus. An area once dominated by local boutiques has faced an influx of low-budget hotels, restaurants with menus in multiple languages and souvenir shops hawking cheap Portuguese-style products made in China.

“While the new hotels have helped revamp some of the city’s decrepit buildings, an increasing number of residents in the Baixa are moving out because of the noise from the restaurants and the garbage,” said Antonio Rosado, head of the Association of Residents of the Baixa Pombalina area. “Some residents are unhappy because of the problems caused by the excess of businesses catering to tourists.”

Many of these tourists look to spend as little as possible, said Maria Goncalves, a shop clerk in Lisbon.

“What happens when everything around you turns into shops selling cheap souvenirs?” asked the 62-year-old who has worked at the Londres Salao fine fabrics shop in downtown Lisbon for more than four decades. “Tourists who come to Lisbon will no longer be able to see the best that we have to offer.”

A total of 1.51 million foreigners spent the night in Lisbon in the first six months of the year, up 14 percent from the same period a year earlier, according to the Lisbon Tourism Observatory. That’s almost three times the 547,733 residents in the Lisbon city center, according to data compiled by the National Statistics Institute.

Visitors to Lisbon used to take a taxi, walk or hop on a tram to get to some of the capital’s monuments. Today, the city boasts an amphibious-vehicle tour, tuk-tuks and a bike-bar that lets them drink beer as they pedal their way along the River Tagus.

Oleg Pugachev, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences who arrived in Lisbon on the MSC Opera cruise ship on Sept. 12, said he was surprised to find tuk-tuk taxis in a city more often associated with trams, the melancholic sound of fado — the heart-rending style of the country’s singers — or centuries-old monuments related to Portugal’s glorious seafaring history.

“I expected to see a statue of Vasco da Gama,” said Pugachev, referring to the Portuguese explorer who became the first European to reach India by sea in the 15th century. “This is weird.”

The tourism sector accounts for almost 10 percent of Portugal’s gross domestic product, according to Adolfo Mesquita Nunes, the secretary of state for tourism.

“Tourism has contributed to urban revitalization, the recovery of old buildings and to bolstering the country’s economy,” Mesquita Nunes said in an interview. “Tourists aren’t forced to go around on tuk-tuks. If they ride them it’s because they like it.”

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