Portugal’s tourism accomodation sector registered its highest monthly figures ever in August, with 3.5 million guests and 10.1 million overnight stays representing year-on-year growths of 4.8% and 1.4% respectively, INE announced on Friday.
Compared to August 2019, there were increases of 6.3% in guests and 4.9% in overnight stays.
Overnight stays in hotels (79.8% of the total) recorded a slight increase (+0.3%; +3.2% compared to August 2019), while overnight stays in short term rents (14.9% of the total) grew by 6.8% (+6.0% compared to August 2019) and those in rural and residential tourism (5.3% share) increased by 4.4% (+33.8% compared to August 2019).
In August, overnight stays from residents fell by 6.9% to 3.5 million and those from non-residents grew by 6.4% to 6.6 million.
Among the seventeen main inbound markets (88.6% of total overnight stays from non-residents), the United States and Canada continued to stand out, recording the biggest increases (+28.9% and +27.5% respectively) compared to August 2022.
In the month under review, the Algarve accounted for 31.3% of overnight stays, followed by Área Metropolitana de Lisboa (21.2%) and the North (17.1%), with the biggest increases in the North (+5.4%), Azores (+4.5%) and Centre (+4.1%), and decreases in the Algarve (-1.9%) and Madeira (-1.2%).
The net bed occupancy rate in tourist accommodation establishments (66.6%) fell by 2.2 percentage points in August, while the net room occupancy rate (73.6%) fell by 1.3 percentage points.
In the period from January to August 2023, overnight stays increased by 12%, +2.4% for residents and +16.9% for non-residents.
In August, 10.4% of tourist accommodation establishments were closed or had no guests (11.9% in July).
Source: LUSA
