Lisbon restaurants charging foreigners more
Restaurants in Lisbon have become too expensive for many Portuguese. In order to avoid loosing this clientele, some restaurants have resorted to Portuguese-only menus.
An Expresso investigation revealed that there are restaurants in Lisbon, where there is one price for tourists, marked on menus in plain sight, and another for Portuguese, transmitted verbally, or pointed out on menus placed in inconspicuous or even hidden areas, which are not accessible to visitors.
At issue are traditional Portuguese food establishments located in Lisbon’s historic centre where there is one ‘price for tourists,’ ‘marked on menus written in several languages and in plain sight’, and another, for Portuguese, which is ‘transmitted verbally, by word of mouth, or pointed out on menus placed in inconspicuous or even hidden areas’.
‘It's a tremendous illegality,’ Marcelino Abreu, a lawyer with experience in consumer law, told Expresso. ‘Restaurants can't discriminate against people on the basis of nationality, charging different prices to Portuguese and foreign tourists.’
The Association of Hotels, Restaurants and Similar Services of Portugal (AHRESP) told the same newspaper that it had no knowledge of the cases, but that prices must be the same and must be set ‘with complete transparency’.
Portugal received 26.5 million non-resident tourists in 2023, an increase of 19.2% compared to 2022 and 7.7% above the pre-pandemic year of 2019, the National Statistics Institute (INE) announced in July.
At the end of July, the Lisbon Municipal Assembly approved a proposal to increase the tourist tax for overnight stays in the capital from two to four euros per night. The measure comes into force on 1 September.
Also reported in The Guardian.
Some quiosques solved it in a more elegant way, creating a "members club" where a member gets a better price for coffee etc. To become a member one must provide a portuguese NIF. I think this is a great idea and makes absolute sense.