July sees record tourist numbers

Record tourist numbers in July were down to Portugal’s “value-for-money” as a destination.

This is according to the Portuguese Secretary of State for Tourism, Trade and Services, Rita Marques, who said on Friday that the competitiveness of Portugal’s tourism sector was behind the hotel sector’s best July ever in terms of hotel overnight stays and guest numbers.
According to preliminary back of the envelope calculations from the national statistics institute INE released on Wednesday comparing July 2019, the number of hotel guests increased by 6.3% (+179,000) and +4.8% in terms of overnight stays. (+397,000) to 8.6 million hotel bookings.
“Our companies are responding to demand after a difficult two and a half years. Today, Portugal once again stands out as one of the most competitive destinations Internationally”, said the secretary of state.
Rita Marques also emphasised that these figures once again showed that the tourism sector is a vital part of Portugal’s economy. (19.8% of GDP in 2019)
The INE registered 3.0.million guests and 8.6 million overnight stays in July compared to 1.6 million in July 2021 (+90.1%). The Portuguese market grew over 15%.
Of the total, 2,9 million were Portuguese holidaymakers (+9.1% on July 2021 and 5.7 million overseas tourists, a like-for-like growth of 205.2%.
The market’s share of overseas holidaymakers was 41.3% in July 2021, but in July 2022 went up to 66.3%, a percentage that Rita Marques says shows that the Portuguese tourism market has bounced back to normal”.