According to a report by ECO, tourism numbers in the Algarve was below expectations and in June it was the only region in the country that still recorded overnight stays below 2019.

The drop was recorded essentially by the Portuguese, however, the Associação da Hotelaria de Portugal (AHP) highlights that the “reduction is being offset by the increase in average prices”, while the Associação da Hotelaria, Restauração e Similares de Portugal (AHRESP) stresses to ECO that the Algarve could to be “moving away from the image of a cheap destination” and that this can only be achieved with “less pressure from occupation levels”.

In June, the Algarve recorded 2.26 million overnight stays, remaining the main tourist region in the country in the summer. Even so, that number is 7% lower than in June 2019, before the pandemic crisis. While all other regions have already surpassed the levels recorded before the pandemic, the Algarve region continues to lag behind, according to data released by the National Institute of Statistics (INE).

This drop in overnight stays in the Algarve region is being offset by the average prices charged “which have risen substantially”, says Cristina Siza Vieira, executive vice president of the Associação da Hotelaria de Portugal (AHP), who considers that the “balance of the first half was , in fact, frankly positive”.

An opinion also shared by the general secretary of AHRESP, who emphasises that, despite the decrease in the absolute number of overnight stays in the Algarve, the “increase in prices means that the sector is above revenue values in relation to 2019”. For Ana Jacinto, this indicator “could demonstrate that the Algarve region is investing more towards increasing the quality of its offer, naturally reflected in the price”.