Pestana Will Run the Pousadas de Portugal Until December 2028 After the Government Rereads the Concession, Pushing Back This Year's Tender

The Pestana Group will keep running the Pousadas de Portugal, the state-owned network of hotels in castles, convents and palaces, until December 2028, two years longer than planned. The government has changed its reading of when the concession ends: it now runs to December 2028 instead of 31 December 2026, ECO reported on 9 November, following a report by Jornal de Negócios.

The change reverses the course set out by the company that owns the network. According to ECO, the 2025 annual report and accounts of the Empresa Nacional de Turismo (Enatur) pointed to the contract ending this year and described preparations for an international public tender, including hiring advisers, which would have been launched in February.

What the ministry confirmed

The Ministry of Economy and Territorial Cohesion confirmed to Negócios that "the Pousadas de Portugal concession is in force until December 2028", ECO reported. It did not explain what led to the new reading of the contract.

The government has not set a date for the new tender. It said only that it would launch it "in good time", according to ECO.

How the Pousadas came to Pestana

The arrangement dates from 2003. A Council of Ministers resolution on tourism policy, Resolução do Conselho de Ministros n.º 97/2003 of 1 August 2003, listed among the government's measures the sale of up to 49 percent of Enatur's share capital and a contract to hand over the running of "the network of lodging and restaurant establishments known as pousadas de Portugal".

The Pestana Group, which ECO describes as Portugal's largest hotel group, holds that 49 percent stake in Enatur. The network today has 35 pousadas from north to south, in buildings such as a 13th-century castle in Estremoz and a convent in Arraiolos, according to the Pousadas de Portugal website.

The fight over the 49 percent

The government still wants to bring Enatur fully back into public hands before the concession ends, by buying Pestana's 49 percent so that Turismo de Portugal, the state tourism agency, again controls all of the company's capital, ECO reported. It would use a call option (a right to buy) in the shareholders' agreement between the two sides. No progress in those talks is known.

Pestana has resisted an early sale. In November 2025, its chief executive, José Theotónio, said that under the 2003 agreement the option could only be exercised after the contract ends and a new concession opens. He said the group's initial 18 million euro investment had turned Enatur into a company valued at around 54 million euros, and that a new concession should be worth considerably more.

Pestana now plans to stay on and compete. "The Pestana Group's priority at this time is, on the one hand, to remain focused on operating the Pousadas de Portugal until the end of December 2028 and, on the other, to prepare to submit its proposal to the tender," Theotónio said, as quoted by ECO.

What it means for you

• The same operator runs the pousadas until at least December 2028. No changes to how they are run have been announced.
• The future of the network, including who runs it after 2028 and whether the state buys back Pestana's stake, depends on a tender that has no date yet.

For more on how Portugal's hotels are faring, see our reports on August hotel revenue by region and on residents' tourist trips in the second quarter.