More Than 80 Hotels to Open Until 2018

Hotels in Portugal recorded an additional 1.9% occupancy rate in March

By 2018 will open 83 new hotel units in Portugal, 41 of which later this year, according to what was announced by the Hotel Association of Portugal (AHP) to Agência Lusa. Cristina Siza Vieira, chief executive of AHP, said that the association has received contacts from interested investors to open hotels with 300 rooms, noting their growing interest.

In March, the hotel occupancy rate increased by 1.9%, while the average price rose by 5 percentage points, with special emphasis in Costa Azul. Minho led the increase in revenue per available room and Madeira was the destination with the highest occupancy rate, while Lisbon had the best prices and revenue performance per available room.

In the ranking of overnight destinations first comes the United Kingdom, followed by Germany and Spain, with Brazil registering a 60% increase when compared with the previous period, and the United States of America with a growth of 28,7 percentage points.

The opening of these new units in Portugal may contribute to excessive hotel supply if the Lisbon airport does not have the capacity to keep up. "The capacity of the Lisbon airport will be exhausted and by 2022 the Lisbon offer will grow and we will not have more tourists if we keep things as they are, which is worrying," warned the president of the Hotel Association of Portugal (AHP), Raúl Martins.

The government's goal is that tourism in Portugal becomes an activity of the entire country and throughout the year, leaving the seasonality behind. Ana Mendes Godinho, Secretary of State for Tourism, believes that it is important to work on tourism in the low season, considering that we are at a time when the sector "is growing across the country and throughout the year."

Source: Eco