Portugal hotels lost 73% of their total revenue last year compared to 2019, the Portuguese Hotel Association (AHP) announced today, as the COVID-19 pandemic drastically reduced travel from abroad, affecting the dependent tourism economy, reports APE.
More than 60% of hotels said they did not expect business to return to 2019 levels before the start of 2023, according to a survey of 502 hotels conducted by AHP last month.
Two-thirds of hotels were closed in January and February as Portugal imposed its second lockdown since the pandemic began to deal with rising cases.
Most hotels do not expect to reopen before May. One in three hotels said they would either not reopen or could not say for sure if and when they would reopen.
“The impact of this closure… is severe on the overall revenue of the hotel industry,” Christina Siza Vieira, the union’s chief executive, said in a video presentation. “We know this will be another very difficult year,” he said.
Portugal’s once-thriving tourism industry suffered its worst results since the mid-1980s as the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent lockdowns around the world crashed aircraft on the ground and kept visitors away.
The decrease in hotel occupancy rates was greater in Lisbon at 55%, according to the AHP, followed by the Azores and Madeira with a decrease of about 45%. The Algarve region suffered less, down 33%.
Portugal, which has recorded a total of 805,647 cases of COVID-19 and 16,389 deaths, is under nationwide lockdown following a catastrophic increase in cases and hospitalizations earlier this year, which has since escalated.
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