Tourism chief predicts great year for the Algarve
Desiderio Silva, the ever-optimistic president of regional tourism board Turismo do Algarve has said that 2014 will be a great year when talking to the Lusa news agency following data which revealed that the Algarve tourism sector grew in terms of tourists, sleepovers, profits and occupancy rates during the summer of 2013, when compared to the same period in 2012.
This performance made the Algarve Portugal’s winning region in terms of tourism during the third quarter of 2013.
Taking a quick look at the numbers we know that hotel guests also greu 2.2% whem compared to 2012, most of them being foreigners which helped by compensating for the 2.8% drop in the number of Portuguese holidaymakers.
By far the most significant portion of foreign tourists was British – 24.7%, followed rather surprinsingly by Spanish with 8.8%.
On the whole, occupancy rates increased by 2.7 percent and sleepovers and profits grew by 2.5%.
These positive results are are the reason for the boards optimism regarding 2014, an attitude which is backed up by the increasing demand from the German market, Silva mentioning that the number of German tourists increased 25.4% last year.
He didn’t forget to mention the importance of the many tourism promotion initiaves that have taken place over the past year which allowed the region to attract tour operators as well as other influencers of tourism to the Algarve.
The creation of ‘all-inclusive’ package holidays was also touted as an important factor, since these would also include flights and hotel stays. These packages struck home in particular with the Dutch and German markets, an important thing to consider since Dutch and German holidaymakers tend to spend six to seven nights during their stays, so the longer they’re here the better it is for the local economy.
