April's tourism figures are just in and show an increase in overnights stays by residents and non-residents with the Algarve making excellent progress with help from one big conference contract from Mercedes-Benz.
The Mercedes Global Training event at Salgados, Albufeira, and the housing of maintenance workers in Sines significantly increasing the country’s overall figures.
In regional terms, the Algarve was up in overnight stays by 34% compared to last April, the Alentejo was up 45% and the north of the country saw an increase of 28%.
The Algarve region turned out to be the most popular attracting 27% of overnight stays in the country due to a good Easter holiday booking rate and the Mercedes event where the CS Group hotel complex at Herdade dos Salgados in Albufeira was chosen by Mercedes to host its training event which saw 15,000 Mercedes salespeople visit the Algarve.
An estimated €10 million was spend by the German manufacturer with its staff adding 40,000 overnight stays to the Algarve’s figures.
The data revealed today by the National Statistics Institute show a significant improvement in overall tourism in the country for April, both year-on-year and compared with March.
As for the growth in overnight stays registered in the Alentejo region this mainly was due to activity at the port of Sines with a growth in exports and repairs and maintenance of the port bringing in non-resident workers, all of whom needed accommodation.
The maintenance shut down of the Galp refinery in Sines during the first quarter of 2014 negatively affected the overall Portuguese trade balance, leading to a 0.7% fall in GDP for the period so the increase in overnight accommodation helped in some part to ease this pain.
The Institute reported that hotel stays in April totalled 3.9 million, an annual growth of 25.4% compared to a dismal March figure of -0.8%. Income was up too, with a year-on-year growth in cash taken of 20% for April.
The Institute claimed that Easter, new air routes, and various events and programmes were factors that contributed to the positive national performance from the tourism sector for April.
The Spanish were back in force with numbers up and overnight stays increasing by 124%, almost double the number of Portuguese tourists from within the country.
Next on the list were the Brazilians (+48.5%), the Irish (+24.6%) and the British (+16.2%).
The Algarve needs a few more tweaks to really get going. The continuation of the tolls on the Via do Infante and the long-delayed upgrade work on the EN 125 are cited by tourism chiefs as the main dampeners to further growth, along with the contiunuing VAT rate of 23% on meals.
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For the original Mercedes Global Training report, see:
http://algarvedailynews.com/news/1112-mercedes-to-bring-15-000-salespeople-to-the-algarve
