August disappointing in terms of UK tourists

The UK market was again disappointing for Algarve tourism in August in what has proved to be a luck-lustre summer in terms of British visitors.

The scorching UK summer  — the hottest on record and the best since the sizzling summer of 76 and the recovery of the North African markets of Tunisia and Morocco have all been factored in for the falloff in visitors.

Hotel and apartment receipts were down 13.3% while Ireland alone was down 15.8% on the same period in 2017.

However, the falloff was offset by better than expected results from the national market (+13.2%), France (+21.7%) and Spain (+18.5%).

According to the Algarve Hotels and Tourism Developments Association (AHETA), the overall average price room take-up rate was 95%, slightly up by +0.5% on the same period last year, which must mean that given the high increase in French and Spanish holidaymakers which outstripped the losses from the UK market, these must have either stayed in budget hotels, luxury rooms in 4 and 5-star hotels, camping sites or made private arrangements.

Overall, since the start of the year, the take-up rate for rooms registered a fall of 1.5% while business turnover increased 3.2%.