Tourism fired more than 20% at Easter – Express

The weather was sunny little, but in March, the month in which the Passover, tourism ran feature and has been growing in all regions of the country. The hotel industry in Portugal recorded 3.7 million overnight stays (20.3% in the same month last year) and 1.4 million guests (plus 18.8%), reveal the latest data from the National Statistics Institute ( INE)

the total income of the national hotel industry also increased 22.5% in March, according to the INE. – it does not stop here emphasize the “calendar effect”, as these data compared with the same month 2015, on which Easter was celebrated in April and not in March, as happened this year.

the growth of overnight stays in March reached all regions of the country, especially the Azores, where the increase was 55.6% compared to the same month last year, which is mainly explained by the effect of the liberalization of air transport in the archipelago, including the start of flights ‘low cost’ to the island of São Miguel.

Relevant also were increases in overnight stays registered in March in the Algarve (28.2%), the north (25.3%) or in the Alentejo (21.8%). Overall, the Algarve received 28.4% of total overnight stays in the country, and Lisbon 27.5%.

In the Algarve, is expected this year a sharp increase due to the higher interest of tour operators, which They diverted the operations of Turkey, Egypt and Tunisia because of turbulence in these destinations. According to the hotel, the sale of rooms started this year to shoot since February, and many units are already in the closed sales for the summer period.

Spanish with an increase of 77%

by nationalities, the Spanish market stood out the increase in overnight stays in domestic hotels this month of Easter, which reached 77%. The growth extended to the British market, which rose 19.7% over the same period last year, or German, which grew 13%. Also overnight stays of French tourists increased by 4.4%, and the Irish stood out with an increase of 56%. The exception was the Brazilian tourists, whose overnights showed a decrease of 0.3%.

For the domestic market, the highlight was the growth of 18.5% on the side of the Portuguese, which altogether generated 1 , 1 million overnight stays in March – verifying the most significant increases in regions like Azores (51.6%), wood (43%), Alentejo (27.3%) and Algarve (18.4%).

the increase in overnight stays in March it was in all categories of hotels, especially in four-star units, where growth stood at 24.2%. Considering the year, guests in national hotels rose 14.9% and overnight stays 16% in the first quarter of 2016.