The occupancy rates in the region’s tourist accommodation establishments reached a solid 92.1% last month, representing a 2.4% increase when you compare the number to August of 2012.

This increase in occupancy rates is attributed mostly to a rather significant rise in French, German and British markets – these three registering a healthy 37.9%, 21.8% and a rather modest, but still good, 10.4% increases, respectively – thus making the month of August the most successful since 2008, and that can only be great news.

The growth of those markets made up for the 4.9% drop in Portuguese tourists.

According to the president of AHETA – Eliderico Viegas – thought he French market especially grew considerably, this only represented 4.9% of the total, which is still dominated by British tourists, while at the same time, admitting that this higher occupancy rate does not necessarily mean an increase in profit, because the tourist establishments had to lower their prices in order to attract the business to begin with.

He did also add however, that if the occupancy rates continue their upward trend for the following four to five years, the region might reach the same level of success that it registered in the past.

During the last month of the calendar summer, the areas of Carvoeiro/Armacao de Pera saw a 3.9% increase, Monte Gordo/Vila Real de Santo Antonio 3.4% and Albufeira a 2.3% registered the biggest boosts in their occupancy rates.

Albufeira was the municipality that registered the highest occupancy rate, hitting a 95.8%, while Tavira was the lowers with an 86%.

We don’t have other numbers to go by, but we’ll keep an eye on what happens to the tourism numbers in the future and see how the region deals with the recent calls to not close down for the winter.

The momentum that he is referring to has to do with the fact that at least till the present time, the tourism numbers in the Algarve have been showing a positive and upward trend, and that he considers that this is reason enough for the Algarve to establish itself as an all year-round destination.

He appealed to businesses operating within the Algarve tourism industry to stay open for as long as possible because in his words, it is ‘essential’ to try and ‘keep facilities and infrastructures connected to tourism open’ during this coming winter; because that’s what is needed to start the process of reaching the goal of making the Algarve into a winter destination.

Silva continued to say that the Algarve tourism industry as a whole is working on the 2012/14 winter campaign and he said that the campaign has shown very positive results in securing about 100,000 nights to be spent in the region on top of all of those already contracted for this winter.

He stressed that the region has to affirm itself as a year-round destination and in order for this to happen, each and every public and private entity have to help create the conditions so as to reach this objective.

Mister Silva is quite uniquely experienced in the subject, having been mayor of Albufeira – one of the region’s major tourist hotspots – for a decade, and now being re-elected as the president of the RTA; he is quite aware of the seasonality aspect of the region and that’s why he is trying to change that.

We can only hope that he manages to do this for the overall good for everyone.

New contracts have been signed by Turismo de Portugal in a bid to see more tourist all-year-round and they expect that this will result in an extra 20,000 tourists touching down at the Faro Airport this year.

All of these new flight towards faro will be originating from four markets that are now considered a priority by the Turismo de Portugal because they have a great potential o generating more tourists in the short-term, namely Germany, Scandinavia, Ireland and Poland. This has come at the cost of 400,000 euros which the government has invested into increasing the number of air flight routes to Faro Airport.

According to the Secretary of State for Tourism, the Algarve has to focus on receiving more winter tourists by cultivating and growing ties with airline companies and tour operators, rather than trying to attract new visitors by organizing events like concerts or parties. A representative from Turismo de Portugal has also added that this is the first time that a plan of ‘these dimensions’ has been put into practice.

Now for some Algarve related tourism numbers in order to put some things into perspective: the region sees 14.3 million annual overnight stays, with 10.9 million of these being booked by foreign visitors. In 2012, almost a half – 47% – of overnight stays took place over the summer season.

With those numbers in mind, we’ve been talking quite a bit lately about the fact that overall business is down, and has been down for the past couple of years, however the government has been taking steps to increase the number of tourists.

In 2013, during the first three months of the year for instance, the number of foreign tourists visiting the region increased by 14.5%, and that’s a pretty decent number.

We’ll just have to wait and see if and which result this new approach will have on the future of the region’s tourism.

It turns out however, that the Algarve peak season tourism numbers have met the expectations of the local Algarve Hotels and Resorts Association, in fact they were slightly larger than the numbers in the same period of 2011.

The occupancy rate for August reached 90.7%, despite the many economic issues that have been hitting the region over the past year, including increased IVA rates, the rather controversial introduction of tolls on the A22 – which created a number of difficulties for those travelers who didn’t have a Portuguese plated car – the overcrowded EN125 as well as the overall Euro crisis.

As said earlier, despite all of these economic woes, attendance actually saw a substantial increase during August, seeing a 17.3% increase in Dutch tourists, 16.1% British, 15.7% German and 4.6% Irish. It should be noted that these increases came at a great time in order to counterbalance the rather significant decrease in the number of Spanish visitors – 29.1% actually – and the domestic Portuguese market decreased as well, by 6.3%. The domestic and Spanish decrease doesn’t come as a surprise though, as this was a natural consequence of the economic issues that both countries are facing, especially the austerity measures in Portugal.

We have to mention that the slight increase in occupancy rate that we’re referring to is of only 0.1%, but considering all the things that should’ve stopped them for even reaching last year’s rate, it shouldn’t be neglected. It is believed that the occupancy rate was helped by all-inclusive holiday packages and accommodation, which come with reduced prices overall. Interestingly enough, the year on year revenue of the region to increase by 4.3%.

Of course some regions saw an increase in occupancy while others saw decreases, in the first category you’ll find Lagos, Sagres, Vilamoura, Quarteira and Quinta do Lago, and in the second Carvoeiro, Armacao de Pera, Monte Gordo and Villa Real de Santo Antonio.