The revenues of hotels in Portugal fell down by 2% during first 9 months of 2012. The fell appeared despite the fact that more foreign tourists have visited the country this year. The average daily rate went down, and less active in-country tourism was one of the major reasons for that. During the time of the economic recession the Portuguese prefer to stay at home.
According to the data provided by the National Statistics Institute, during first nine months of 2012 hotels in Portugal were visited by 6.2 million foreign tourists. This is 3% higher comparing to the same period of 2011. As September is considered the last month of the summer tourism season, the flow of tourists is likely to fall down in the forthcoming months. Meanwhile, the number of Portuguese travellers has decreased by 6 per cent. During first 9 months of 2012 the country’s hotels were visited by 4.9 million of domestic travellers. Hotel rates were one of the most important factors in the decision-making, as budget hotels lured more visitors. Because of the smaller number of in-country travellers, hotel revenues for January-September 2012 were down to 1.53 billion euros ($1.95 billion).
Currently, tourism industry accounts for approximately 10% of Portugal’s GDP. The country is definitely not in its best position, as it struggles with the worst recession since the 1970s. A huge 78 billion euro bailout is another huge problem. Therefore, there’s no wonder why the Portuguese cut their expenses and prefer to stay at home.
If the situation doesn’t change, this year will be not as successful for the tourism sector of Portugal as the previous one. Last year the revenues of local hotels estimated almost 2 billion euros – the best result since the recession of 2008.