Tourism revenues hit €5Bn

 In Hotel, News, Tourism

Portugal achieved another record in tourism revenues in 2022 from hotel bookings.

Last year, partly on back of pent-up demand hanging over from the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021, was the best year for tourist accommodation with revenues topping €5Bn according to the country’s National Statistics Institute (INE).

The figures show a 114.7% increase on 2021 and a 16.5% increase on 2019 which in itself was record year with hotels, holiday apartments and guest houses registering 26.5 million guests and 16.5 million overnight stays representing increases of 83.3% and 86.3% respectively on the previous year.
The numbers are even higher (28.9 million guests and 77 million overnight stays) when taking into account camping sites, and youth hostels which are not included in the ‘touristic accommodation’ category.
Overseas visitors made up the lion’s share of bookings (over 15 million) in 2022 compared to just over 11 million Portuguese holidaymakers, although locals did make up most of the guests in the off-season months.
The INE also records that the average stay of foreign tourists was around three days longer compared to national stays (2 nights longer).
Even December was a surprisingly good month for the industry with 1.6 million guests and 3.7 million overnight stays, or increases of 44.2% and 44.6% respectively on 2021 and 1.9% and 5.5% compared to 2019.
Not surprisingly, Portugal’s tourism region of the Algarve clocked up the most overnight stays in Portugal (19.1 million) in 2022. This was followed by the Greater Lisbon region with 17.1 million, while the North region came third with 11.5 million.
Every region in Portugal saw increases in overnight stays, particularly the Lisbon Metropolitan Area with the biggest increases (+132.6%) compared to 2021.
Overnight stays by foreigners more than doubled in ever region, although overnight stays by national tourists fell 4.5% in the Algarve.
In January, the President of the national tourism board, Turismo de Portugal, Luís Araújo admitted that tourism had recovered “faster than expected” from the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic which had had a crippling effect on the sector as a whole.
“What we predict for 2023 is continued growth like we had in 2022; obviously, there are many uncertainties from the War in Ukraine to inflation, but we believe that we are in a strong position” said the tourism chief at the FITUR tourism fair in Madrid, Spain.

Photo: Dan Gold – Unsplash