April sees tourist overnight stays soar

The number of overnight stays in Portugal by tourists was in April up 510% on the same month last year, at 946,800, with the Lisbon region hosting one quarter of that total, but was still down 84.2% on April 2019, before the pandemic, figures released on Monday by the National Statistics Institute (INE) show.

By TPN/Lusa, in News, Tourism, Business · 14 Jun 2021, 13:28 · 0 Comments

The data recorded 460,000 guests stayed in tourist accommodation in April, up 762.6% on April 2020, for a total of 946,800 nights. In April last year tourism had practically ground to a halt due to the pandemic. In March this year there were year-on-year decreases of 59.6% in guest numbers and 67.1% in nights.

Overnight stays by residents of Portugal in tourist accommodation were in April up 517% on the year - having in March been down 20.8% - while those by non-residents swelled by 496.5%, having been down 86.7% in March. Again, compared to April 2019 the falls were steep: 60.3% and 93.5%, respectively.

The income of tourist accommodation establishments in April totalled €47.7 million, of which €35.9 million related to rooms, with these figures up 838% and 696.4% on the year respectively. However, compared with April 2019, total income was down 85.8% and that relating to rooms decreased by 85.6%.

In all tourist accommodation establishments, average revenue per available room (RevPAR) stood at €10.80 euros in April - up from €7.40 in March - while the average daily rate (ADR) per occupied room reached €61.90 in April - up from €51 in March - when in April 2019 RevPAR and ADR had been €45.50 and €81.30 respectively.

In April this year the Lisbon region accounted for 24.4% of overnight stays, followed by the North (19.7%), the Center (15.5%) and the Algarve (14.9%).

In the first four months of 2021, the regions with the lowest decreases were the Alentejo (-38.4%), Azores (-45.5%), Centre (-56.7%) and North (-63.6%), while the remaining regions showed decreases of over 70%.

For the first four months of the year, INE reports, there was a 70.1% year-on-year decrease in total overnight stays, resulting from drops of 39% in those by residents of Portugal and of 85.6% in non-residents.

In these four months as a whole, the regions that showed the smallest decreases in the number of overnight stays were the Alentejo (-38.4%), the Azores (-45.5%), Centre (-56.7%) and North (-63.6%), while the remaining regions showed decreases of over 70%.