The Algarve hotel occupancy rate for July was 87.4%, a rise of 2% on the same month in 2015, said the Association of Hotels and Resorts in the Algarve (AHETA).
This is the highest July occupancy rate for 16 years when in 2000 the figure was 89.4% but this dropped in 2004 to 70.5%, the lowest since AHETA started publishing the stats in 1996.
This year, it’s the post Brexit Brits that are opting for the Algarve with 6% more staying in the region’s hotels than July last year.
Ireland was up 1% but the domestic market dropped a full 6.3%.
The largest increases occurred in the Carvoeiro/Armação de Pêra area, up 3.6% and in the Lagos/Sagres area, up 2.7%.
The main resort area of Albufeitra, which accounts for 40% of the Algarve’s tourist income, was up 2.6%.
In Olhão, the increasingly popular Minister for the Sea, Ana Paula Vitorino, and the Secretary of State for Fisheries, José Apolinario, launched this year’s Seafood Festival that runs from today, Tuesday until Sunday 14th of August.
The council expects more visitors than last year’s 60,000 at the Jardim Pescador Olhanense venue as the ticket prices have dropped to €5 and €8 depending on which day people visit.
This cut in the tickets price is to make the festival and concert, ‘more accessible,’ according to mayor António Pina.
The ticket allows visitors into the seafood area where crab, spider crab, lobster, oysters, prawns, shrimps, cockles and clams are available and where they can see the live music each evening.
The line up is Aurea (August 9th), Expensive Soul (10th), Os Azeitonas (11th), C4 Pedro (12th), Camané (13th) and the ever popular Xutos & Pontapés (14th)
