INE: Overnight stays in May 2023 exceed pre-pandemic records by 9%

Source: Ambitur

In May this year, the tourism sector registered more than 7.1 million overnight stays.

The tourist accommodation sector recorded 2.8 million guests and 7.1 million overnight stays in May 2023, corresponding to 12.1% and 10% increases, respectively (+16.8% and +14% than in April this year). Compared to May 2019, there were increases of 8.2% in guests and 9% in overnight stays.

In May, the internal market contributed 1.8 million overnight stays (+0.4%) and the external markets totaled 5.4 million overnight stays (+13.6%). Compared to May 2019, there were increases of 10.2% in overnight stays from residents and 8.6% in overnight stays from non-residents.

Compared to 2019, overnight stays by UK residents increased by 4% and the Spanish market lost some representation. The highlight with the highest growth goes to the North American and Canadian markets, compared to May 2019 (+67.2% and +62.2%, respectively), but also compared to 2022 (+34.6% and +66.3%).

Guests and overnight stays maintain a growth trend compared to 2019

Overnight hotel stays (82.1% of the total) increased by 8.9% (+7.7% compared to May 2019).

Compared to 2019, overnight stays increased by 9% in May (+10.2% in residents and +8.6% in non-residents), slowing down from the growth recorded in April (+14.3%; +20.8% in residents and +11.8% in non-residents).

In the first five months of 2023, overnight stays increased by 23.9%, +12.7% in residents and +29.3% in non-residents. Compared to the same period of 2019, overnight stays grew by 12.8%, +17.4% in residents and +10.9% in non-residents.

Among the seventeen main inbound markets (87.3% of total overnight stays from non-residents), only the Netherlands and Finland recorded decreases in overnight stays (-8.9% and -0.4% respectively). Canada and the United States continued to be the fastest growing markets, compared to 2022, although with a slowdown.

The largest decreases were observed in overnight stays from Swedish (-13.1%), Finnish (-12.8%), and Brazilian (-10.3%) guests.

The average accommodation length has decreased

However, in May, the average stay in tourist accommodation establishments (2.52 nights) decreased by 1.9% (-2.4% in April), when compared with the same month of the previous year. The average stay of residents (1.85 nights) declined by 1.5% and that of non-residents (2.86 nights) decreased by 4.0%. The highest values of this indicator were recorded in Madeira (4.34 nights) and in Algarve (3.83 nights), while the lowest ones occurred in Centro (1.67 nights) and in Alentejo (1.72 nights).

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