Algarve hotels nearly full this August

Average occupancy per room in Algarve hotels hit 95% in August, 0.5% higher than August last year.

The hoteliers’ association of the Algarve, AHETA, added that income had risen 1%.

British visitors continue to decline in numbers, down 13.3% but the Irish are staying away from the Algarve’s hotels as well, with a drop of 15.8% on last year.

The highest increases were from the French, up 21.7% and the Spanish, up 18.5% on last summer.

Overall this year to date, there has been a 1.5% decline in occupancy per room but the association does not, of course, register those staying in the booming number of Alojamento Local villas and apartments. Budget airline, easyJet reported a seat occupancy rate of 96.4% during August showing a slight (0.1 percentage point) rise in demand from its customers over the top holiday month.

The hoteliers have been banking the money though with their take, based in increased room rates, increasing 3.2% since the beginning of the year.

And in Spain...

"Big falls were registered in the three biggest markets for Spanish tourism: the UK, France, and Germany. The number of Britons visiting in July fell by 5.6% to 2.2 million, with the weak pound making it more expensive to visit Eurozone nations like Spain. The number of French visitors shrank by 11.4% to 1.4 million, while just 1.3 million Germans visited Spain in July, 6.2% fewer than last year.

"It is impossible to overstate the importance of tourism to Spain’s economy. It accounted for 15% of GDP in 2017, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council. It employs, directly or indirectly, 2.8 million people — roughly 15% of the total working population. That’s more than any other industry.

"Local residents whose jobs don’t depend directly on tourism are unlikely to be overly sympathetic. Many have been complaining for years about the toxic mix of externalities unfettered tourism brings in its wake, including sky-high prices and rents, overcrowding, noise, environmental degradation, overstretched public services and infrastructure, and the gradual formation of a mono-dimensional local economy. And as mentioned above, many of the jobs that mass-tourism creates are of the casual, low-paid variety that vanish into the ether the moment the tourists go home."

See: Be Careful What You Wish For: Weak Mass-Tourism Threatens Spain’s Five-Year Economic Recovery

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