The percentage for last year was 83%, so there’s a clear upward trend there, many families choosing to rent holiday homes from private owners which reflect better value than traveling to a foreign country because overall cost was seen as the main factor in the holiday destination decision making.

As one might expect, the most popular destination for Portuguese tourists was the Algarve region, which hosted a solid 69% of the country’s internal holidaymakers.

The Beira Litoral and Minho regions saw large growths in demand of 72% and 45% respectively.

The overall tourist figures were boosted by the availability of cheap flights towards well-known destinations in the Algarve such as Faro, Lisbon and Oporto. The numbers were also helped by the the fact that the prices in the Algarve where less than if the equivalent purchases would’ve been made in northern Europe for instance. This might’ve also been a consideration behind the growth of Spanish and French visitors.

Portugal proved to be the fourth most popular country in Europe as far as people searching for places to rent, this representing 11% of the total number.

Another interesting data point that the study revealed was that the Portuguese holidaymakers are big believers in the idea of last minute booking, with 52% of Portuguese tourists who booked in July and August traveling in those same months.

As we mentioned earlier, renting private homes for vacations is becoming increasingly popular, the current economic climate making it a much more cost-effective way of ensuring accommodation during a holiday stay.

These numbers coordinate with those coming from various Algarve sources which has seen an increase in foreign visitors as well.

Even though Easter is quite early in 2013, you have to keep in mind that is a very popular holiday for the Portuguese as well as for the British and the Irish, and tourist from the British Isles are quite a common occurrence here normally, so on such an important occasion you can be sure that they’ve already booked their accommodations well ahead of time.

We should also note that while Good Friday – Friday 29^th March – and Easter Sunday – Sunday 31^st March – are national holiday in Portugal as well, Easter Monday isn’t, it won’t really affect you per se, but just a heads up so you’re not astounded when you see people going about their business as usual on Monday.

The Algarve attractions are pretty much the same regardless of the time of year that you visit during however, we’ll talk now a bit about the average temperatures that you should expect while visiting towards the end of March since this may not have been the time that you considered initially.

Now the average temperatures during March hover around 15 Centigrade – 58 Fahrenheit – however, since you’ll be going there right at the end of the month, looking at the highest temperatures might be a good idea as well. The highest temperature on average in March in the Algarve is 19 Centigrade or 66 Fahrenheit, with the lowest being around 10 and 52, so you should expect decent temperature and weather during this Easter stay. The weather can however vary quite a bit depending on the region that you’ll be based around so keep that in mind.

Even though you’ll be going to attend a religious holiday and religious event, whether or not there’s sun will surely influence your other activities, so you’ll be glad to hear that in March there are on average seven hours of daylight and in April nine, so somewhere in between.

Regardless of how long a time you’ll be spending in the Algarve or where exactly you’ll be staying, you should strongly consider some Lagos car hire services.

According to a statement released by the Lagos Town hall, the elevation of Lagos to city status is considered one of the most significant moments in local history because it was a clear recognition of the importance that the port town garnered.

This action led to the headquarters for the governors of the Kingdom of the Algarve to get set up in the city, as a result making it one of the most important locations in the history of the country. The upgrade to city status is also considered to have been crucial in Lagos being the place where the first ships sailed on the voyages of discovery, which in turn opened Europe up to the rest of the world and everything that those brought with them.

Starting with the 24^th of January the Lagos Town Hall is organizing a variety of cultural activities, which aim to promote the local cultural heritage as well as attract some tourists in the winter low-season.

On the 24^th of January the tourist guides and other professionals from the tourism sector will take part in a day-long seminar meant to refresh their knowledge in relation to Lagos’ cultural and archaeological heritage so that they can then better pass on this information onto their visitors.

The activity will be held in Portuguese and is free for tourism professionals  for those who registered to attend until the 21^st of January.

Also on the 24^th a book entitled “Legado do Conde de Ferreira no Algarve” – The Legacy of Count Ferreira in the Algarve – will be launched at the Cultural Centre at 4:30PM.

On the 25^th of January, guide Jose Antonio Martins will be carrying out a free guided tour of the historic centre of Lagos, an activity open to the general public which will take place between 10AM and 1PM.

We tout the idea of visiting the Algarve during the winter a lot on this website because of the reduced prices, considerably smaller crowds and milder temperatures however we’ve also talked about how the tough economic times are battering the area, and today is going to be one of the latter types of articles.

Almost half of the Algarve hotels associated with the AHP have decided to suspend their activities during the low season, for at least three months – 48% to be exact.

AHP representatives have admitted that this move is going to be bad for the region as a whole and that there is definitely a seasonality trend taking place in the Algarve, which a few years back wasn’t that prevalent. On the other hand it is a clear sign that there just aren’t enough customers for all of these hotels to continue operating through the winter season.

This seasonality phenomenon is having some effects in other regions of the country as well, not only the tourist-heavy Algarve. For instance in the Alentejo region – which is just North of the Algarve – fourteen percent of their hotels shut down during the winter, while none of them did so in 2011.

This issue isn’t the only one hitting the hotel industry in the region, with a sharp drop in prices being yet another critical matter to consider.

Between January and September of 2012, the average price of a hotel room was of 40.48 Euros, while the occupancy level overall averaged at 59.39 percent.

The capital, Lisbon, stood out by far with the biggest of price drops with the average room price dropping in September by 15.77 percent.