Foreign tourist numbers down – The Portugal News

The National Statistics Institute (INE) recalls that, in March, guests had increased by 12.3% and overnight stays by 12.8%, but emphasises that April’s results “will have been influenced by the calendar effect of the associated holiday period to Easter, which in the previous year was concentrated only in April, while this year it was distributed between March and April”.

Resident overnight stays totalled 1.8 million, falling 12.5% ​​(after +9.9% in March) and contradicting the growth trajectory of the last two months.

External markets registered the first decrease since March 2021 (-0.8%, after +14.0% in March), totalling 4.8 million overnight stays in April.

UK main market

The United Kingdom was the main issuing market in April (share of 18.2%), having recorded a slight drop of 0.2%, followed by Germany (share of 11.7%), which grew 2.0%.

The Spanish market (share of 6.9%) stood out for its significant decrease (-42.5%).

In April, there was some heterogeneity in the evolution of overnight stays between regions, with the Azores registering the most significant increase (+7.5%), while in Madeira (+0.8%), in the West and Tagus Valley ( +0.5%) and in Greater Lisbon (+0.1%) the increases were more modest.

In the remaining regions, there were decreases in overnight stays, with greater expression in Alentejo (-11.3%) and Algarve (-9.9%).

Occupancy in tourist accommodation establishments decreased in April, to 47.3% and 57.5%, in net bed occupancy and room occupancy rates, respectively (-3.6 percentage points and -2.7 points, respectively).