Rising prices and demand from tourism have helped recovery since April.

Although the number of tourists is still below pre-pandemic levels, ‘alojamento local’ (local lodging) revenues are recovering, and the price increase seen in recent months has helped. According to Diário de Notícias newspaper, prices per night have gone up both as a result of inflation and significant demand.

Portugal’s largest local accommodation management company, GuestReady, tells the newspaper that the average revenue from the one thousand properties it manages in the country was already above the pre-pandemic period in July. However, it stresses that it is not the occupation rate that has fueled this recovery.

Even though the occupancy rate has risen slightly to 90%, compared to what was the best year ever for tourism in Portugal (86% in 2019), it is the prices that have leveraged the recovery. “It is not in the occupancy rate that the improvement is seen. It is in the revenue and daily rates that there is a sharp recovery”, with August daily prices increasing by an average of 30% compared to 2019.

“The recovery was accentuated from April onwards and, from there, we started to break records compared to 2019, which had been our strongest year. September will also be in line; we already have bookings that allow us to confirm it”, says the company’s managing director in Portugal and Spain, Rui Silva.