"The Tourism Indicator predicts that around 120.5 thousand overnight stays will have been registered in the month of December, throughout the region, in the set of tourist accommodation establishments (hotels, local accommodation and tourism in rural areas)", reads a publication by SREA, published on its website.

According to the Regional Statistics Service, "the value of this estimate of overnight stays is 5.5% lower when compared to the final value of the same month of the previous year (127.5 thousand)".

The publication also highlights the number of passengers disembarked at the airports of the Azores in December, coming from flights originating in mainland Portuguese and Madeira and from international flights.

According to data previously revealed by SREA, the region accounted for 124,024 landings that month, 4.4% more than in December 2022.

Passengers from international flights (11,484) increased by 21.3%, while travellers from the mainland and Madeira (61,010) recorded a drop of 1.1%.

It also highlights withdrawals and purchases at automated teller machines (ATM) and automatic payment terminals (POS) made by nationals (207.5 million euros) and foreigners (9.7 million euros), carried out in December in the Azores.

Purchases made at POS reached 164.5 million euros (7% more than in the same period of the previous year), of which 156.2 million with national bank cards (6.4% more) and 8.4 million with international bank cards (20.2% more).

Credits: Unsplash; Author: @carol-bock-736238400;

Withdrawals from ATMs reached 52.7 million euros (2.7% less), of which 51.4 million were national (2.8% less) and 1.3 million were international (0.04% more).

According to the SREA, the Tourism Indicator (IT) "aims to estimate the general evolution of economic activity in the tourism sector in the Autonomous Region of the Azores".

"IT-Açores results from the addition of estimates of overnight stays recorded in the three types of tourist accommodation and is released about three weeks before the publication of the highlight of Tourism Activity," reads the publication.

The estimate of overnight stays in the hotel, rural tourism and local accommodation industry as a whole "uses the values recorded in the Survey on the Permanence of Guests in Hotels and other accommodations" and the "extrapolation of trends according to the expected response rate in each case".