Hotel nights 45% below 2019 numbers

Despite improvements, Portugal’s tourism sector is still far beyond expectations now that flight restrictions have eased.

According to the national statistics institute (INE), both the number of hotel guests and the number of nights they stay in a hotel is just 42.5% and 45% respectively compared to numbers in July 2019.
On the other hand, and also compared to 2019, the number of nightly stays in Portugal by nationals and overseas residents living here went up by 6.4% in July 2021 as holidaymakers chose to stay and holiday at home.
To some degree this made up for the loss of nights stayed in hotels by foreigners which plummeted by 67.6%.
Nevertheless, the trend is towards recovery: in July, Portugal welcomed 1.6 million guests with hotels and accommodation recording 4.5 million nights, above the million guests and 2.6 million nights registered for July 2020.
The internal market represented 2.7 million nights or 59% while the overseas market stood at 1.9 million in 2020.
In a six-monthly comparison between 2020 and 2021, the fall in total nights was 2.4% in the first six months of the year. Non-resident nights fell 30.7% in this period but resident nights spent rose 31.7%. All regions nationally saw the number of Portuguese tourists rise in this period.
However, when comparing the first six month of 2021 with 2019, the number of nights spent by foreigners fell 82.1% which was caused by travel restrictions imposed by various European countries and the lockdown at the beginning of the year which deterred overseas holidaymakers who opted to holiday instead at home.