The head of Algarve Tourism, João Fernandes, has said that the amount of flights arriving to Faro this year compared to 2019, the pre-pandemic year, will reach 99%.
The arrivals are made up of the 'top 5' main operators for the region - Ryanair, Easyjet, Jet2, Transavia and British Airways.
“We have already managed to recover 93% of connections to the five main outbound markets, the United Kingdom, Germany, Ireland, France and the Netherlands”, says the official.
As of April, Faro airport will have six completely new routes and ten routes to eight countries will be 'reinforced' (Germany, Spain, Canada, Czech Republic, Belgium, France, Luxembourg and Norway), representing an increase of 260,000 seats by plane - “a very comforting sign” given the expected recovery in 2022, according to João Fernandes, president of the Algarve Region Tourism (RTA).
The new routes planned for the Algarve this summer include flights to Nuremberg and Muenchester (in Germany, operated by Corendon, which makes its debut at Faro airport), to Toronto (in Canada, by Air Transact), and to Prague (in the Republic of Czech Republic, by Eurowings). Existing routes are also being reinforced to a number of cities, such as Cologne, Brussels, Madrid, Toulouse or Oslo.
In all, 88% of destinations to Faro will be resumed this summer, and of the 53 countries to which the Algarve received air connections previously, only two will be left out: Ukraine and Hungary.
“We have good indicators for tourism in the region, but there is a degree of uncertainty regarding the impact of the war in Ukraine, especially the concern about the rise in prices of goods and services that affect the entire tourism value chain, from fuel to flour to sunflower oils”, saidthe president of the RTA.
Could the Algarve somehow benefit from the 'diversion' of visitors from countries closer to the conflict zone, such as Turkey? “It is difficult to predict the behavior of the market in terms of flow diversion or demand retraction”, replied João Fernandes, recognising that countries such as Poland or Finland could be keen to travel “because they are closer to a conflict that is serious and scary”, whereas h the Algarve is “a geographically more remote destination, with less connotation with the conflict,” he says.
This Monday, the Algarve also launched the “It’s easier to book now” campaign, with the aim of “giving you the security that it is easier to travel” in relation to the pandemic, which will be available in five languages and addressed to the ten largest outbound markets (United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Netherlands, Norway and Switzerland). The campaign takes place on the main social networks, Facebook, Youtube, Instagram and Tik Tok.
“In regard to this campaign, it is important to make efforts to capture reservations and reinforce the reputation of the destination”, said the head of tourism in the Algarve, giving the example of the “British Government, that announced from March 18th it will no longer have any restrictions on travel associated with covid”.
