Tourist reservations for the month of September in the Algarve increased by around 13 percent, with the British market "having a substantially large weight", said today to Lusa a leader of the Associação da Hotelaria de Portugal (AHP).
“We went from 50% to 63% in three days, which means an increase of around 13%. Although it is not just an increase in the British market, it has a substantial weight ”, João A Soares, director of AHP in the Algarve, told Lusa.
In the opinion of João Soares, also director of Hotel Dom José, in Quarteira (Loulé), “just as the British market has infected other markets negatively, now it ends up contaminating positively, because when it comes to the Algarve it ends up bringing confidence to others Northern European countries and markets ”.
The regional leader of the association, which represents more than 60% of national hoteliers, said that after the reopening of the air corridor with the United Kingdom, businessmen are waiting for Ireland to make the same decision.
"As the Irish were our second market in the middle / low season, it was very important that they made the same decision as the UK," he said.
João Soares believes that there will be a significant increase in bookings in the British market for the month of September: I have no doubts that this can happen, because Spain is closed and the British are a people who need to travel, need to get out”.
“It is not an increase that solves the region's problems, of course, because the majority of hotels are between 50% and 70% below last year, but it will certainly help to mitigate, at least, the closing of hotels in September extending this decision to October or November ”, he stressed.
According to João Soares, prices this year in the Algarve “are and will remain below the values practiced in previous years, due to low occupancy”, maintaining the rates that were in force at the date of the United Kingdom's decision to exempt quarantine travelers from Portugal.
"The price only increases when the demand is higher than the supply and when there is no demand higher than the supply and availability that existed, prices have not increased nor will they increase and we will continue to have prices much lower than those of 2019", he concluded.
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