The Porto Bay Hotels & Resorts was the fruit of an idea: building hotels perfectly adapted to the demands of the market in terms of facilities, services and positioning. A small group of Madeira investors grouped together and decided to invest in the hotel business,  an area where some already had a background.

The first hotel of the Group – Suite Hotel Eden Mar – was open in 1988 introducing an innovative concept of self-catering spacious suites. The Cliff Bay, the 5-star flagship hotel of the Group was inaugurated in 1994, as a result of careful research to fulfill Madeira’s need for different five star.

In 2000, the town centre hotel Porto Santa Maria welcomed its first guests.  The design mode of this hotel was to fuse an inner city hotel with a resort concept.

In December of 2003, Porto Bay Hotels & Resorts opened its new resort concept Vila Porto Mare, which integrates three different products (Suite Eden Mar, Porto Mare and The Residence) under a shared space of services and facilities accessible to all guests within the complex.

The first step to internationalization arose in January 2007, when the Porto Bay Rio International Hotel situated on the front line of the Copacabana beach in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil was acquired. The Porto Bay group took this step in partnership with Logoplaste, a successful Portuguese multinational company that marks the beginning of its participation in joint projects with Porto Bay.

Further internationalization occurred later in 2007 when the Porto Bay Group attained the prize-winning Porto Bay Glenzhaus in Búzios (a beachside resort town in the state of Rio de Janiero) intended to compliment the existing Rio de Janiero hotel.

In March of 2008 further steps were taken in the groups expansion, extending their grasp to mainland Portugal with the opening of the Porto Bay Falésia (formerly a Rio hotel) in Olhos d’Água near Albufeira in the Algarve. These most recent acquisitions to the Porto Bay Hotels & Resorts portfolio have boosted the groups maximum capacity to approximately 2600 beds split between both 4 and 5 star categorized units across three very distinct regions, but each embracing the fundamental concept and quality of the Porto Bay guarantee.

The group is controlled by two Madeiran Groups. The Ocean Islands Group and the Blandy Group each hold 45% of the share capital with the remaining 10% held by local businessmen. The German Tour Operator Thomas Cook AG, with whom there is a close working relationship, holds 15% of the shares in the management company.