According to Noticias ao Minuto, the international public tender for the concession of the Palácio Hotel do Bussaco, in the municipality of Mealhada, has been launched, within the scope of ‘Revive’, a programme that aims to recover the State's heritage and its tourist use.

The competition, which was launched on Monday, 24 June at a ceremony that took place in the Mata Nacional do Bussaco, predicts the concession of the hotel for a period of 50 years, with a minimum annual rent payment of 51,355 euros, the mayor of Mealhada, António Jorge Franco, has told Lusa.

According to the mayor, the main building requires extensive work, with the expectation that the investment from the private party that wins the competition will be “at least 12 or 13 million euros”.

The mayor of Mealhada recalled that this is a process that takes “many years”, as the current concession “expired in 2001” and survives, through “precarious contracts”.

When he was president of the Mata do Bussaco Foundation, in 2010, António Jorge Franco tried to move forward with a new concession for the hotel, whose proposal ended up falling through, “due to a legitimate political decision that considered that that model would not be the best option”.

“With ‘Revive’, it would make perfect sense for the programme to be the solution. Fortunately, this process was managed to be implemented in ‘Revive’”, he stressed, noting that there was close work between all the entities involved, both locally and from the central administration.

António Jorge Franco recalled that work will be necessary to ensure that the hotel remains with a five-star rating, hoping that private investment will maintain or even increase the number of rooms available (around 60).

The process includes adjacent buildings, such as Chalet de Santa Teresa, which could be used for hotel capacity or other types of uses, he explained.

For the mayor, the inclusion of the Palácio Hotel do Bussaco in ‘Revive’ will allow “to defend and recover the heritage and put it to use”.

The Mealhada Chamber hopes that between the end of 2025 and the beginning of 2026, the works can begin, in a process whose public tender will remain open until October this year.

The Palácio Hotel do Bussaco, designed in the last quarter of the 19th century by the Italian architect Luigi Manini, is located in the Mata Nacional do Bussaco, in the parish of Luso, municipality of Mealhada (district of Aveiro).