The Web Summit is this year for the first time being held outside Ireland, where it was founded. It is expected to bring some 50,000 participants to Lisbon between 8 and 10 November.
The AHP’s chief executive, Cristina Siza Vieira, said that 57 percent of all hotel reservations in Greater Lisbon during the period are for Web Summit participants, which should help push occupancy rates up to around 85 percent.
“In November of 2015, the occupancy rate in Lisbon was 64.52 percent,” Siza Vieira said, adding that prices are also looking to be strikingly higher.
“The price of November [of 2015] closed at 77 euros and in these days [8 to 10 November of 2016] they are estimating that the price will close at 163 euros,” she said.
In June, when the AHP carried out its first survey of its members on the impact of Web Summit, this was still more or less unclear, with some 40 percent of hoteliers as yet having no reservations for the period.
But the latest survey, carried out between 15 and 28 September, with a sample of 49 percent of the more than 180 hotels and apart-hotels in the Greater Lisbon area, showed that “the impact is very direct”, although participants are staying in a range of types of accommodation, including private short-rental apartments.
The data shows French and British guests dominating hotel reservations in the period, whereas in November of last year Portugal accounted for most of them.
Eight out of 10 hotels that replied in the survey have no agreement with Web Summit organisers, which has signed partnerships with 18 hotels for the event.