According to Publituris, the scenario is promising and has the potential to improve the multiple records achieved in 2023, in relation to the number of guests, passengers at the airport, rounds of golf and revenue, which reached €1,592 million in the previous year, an all-time high.

The region in the south of Portugal has presented its extensive plan for 2024, which includes new air connections, as the Algarve will welcome flights from two new points this year, adding two more routes to the 81 routes carried out by 27 companies in 2023.

Starting in the summer, Faro Airport will receive flights from the Azores, a connection made by SATA.

United Airlines fights are scheduled for May, which will make the Algarve and New York closer than ever. On May 25, the inaugural flight of this connection will land, leaving Newark airport the day before.

“Tourist agents in the Algarve have been working intensely to diversify what the destination has to offer. The financial sustainability of companies and the labour supply require us to make this much effort. We believe that we are moving towards balance, in which talking about the low season will become a linguistic crutch. We have never had so many overnight stays from January to April and from October to December”, announced André Gomes, president of Turismo do Algarve.

The fight against seasonality is also promoted through initiatives such as the Algarve Nature Fest, which returns in 2024, with walks, boat or bicycle trips, and bird and cetacean watching, among other leisure activities. The Algarve Walking Season brand will also be reactivated, with four walking festivals in the interior of the region and more than 200 activities in nature, for more than three thousand participants.

Tourism in the Algarve will also take place in Industrial and Literary fields, with the participation of 22 regional partners in the national network, within the Agenda Nacional à Descoberta do Turismo Industrial, from March 16 to March 30. In a more cultural context, literary tours will include the Literária Saramago Route in the Algarve.

Strategic Marketing Plan for Tourism

For 2024, in-depth work is planned to analyse tourism in the region, together with the sector’s stakeholders, from which a proposal for a Strategic Marketing Plan for Tourism in the Algarve will emerge for the period 2024/2028, in what will be the third edition of this document. The new plan will be established by the end of the third quarter of 2024.

Taking into account that this industry does not prosper without energy, water and environmental sustainability, Turismo Algarve will promote the Water Efficiency Seal, with all tourist accommodation in the region being challenged to join a program which aims to contribute to a 15 percent reduction in water consumption in the urban sector.

“The Algarve’s diverse offers are reflected in the arrival of tourists with very different profiles. In golf, for example, two-thirds of the national rounds were played on more than 40 courses in the region”, disclosed André Gomes.

The president of Turismo do Algarve also stressed the need to continue to invest in environmental sustainability, with a focus on water, to accommodate for the increase in demand. “Tourism agents in the Algarve initiated water-saving measures in 2020, in preparation for the Plano de Eficiência Hídrica Regional, which has made the sector more efficient. In golf, we are increasing the use of treated wastewater, and just this month two new courses were connected to a WWTP”, explained André Gomes.

In the Algarve mountains, Renature Monchique will be planting 125 thousand trees by April next year, with €400 thousand in financing provided by Ryanair.

At the end of 2023, the Algarve registered 5.1 million guests all year round, 7.7 percent more than in the same period of last year, which in terms of revenue amounted to €1.59 billion. At an all-time high 9.6 million passengers passed through the Gago Coutinho airport. In golf, the region registered around 1.4 million rounds.

This year, an additional 136 thousand seats are estimated on airlines, with six new routes: Marrakesh (Morroco), Krakow (Poland), Budapest (Hungary) and Brest (France), as well as from New York and Ponta Delgad

When compared to the previous record year in the Algarve, 2019, only one indicator is still below, with -2.5 percent of overnight stays, but already 6.4 percent above 2022.

However, in January 2024, overnight stays increased by 2.1 percent compared to the same month in 2023, with 1.9 percent more guests, and a 6 percent increase in the number of British tourists in the country.

Data from INE praises the Algarve’s position as the main national tourist destination in terms of overnight stays from 2019 to 2023, with a share of 26.4 percent in total overnight stays in Portugal.

The United Kingdom, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, France, Spain and the USA make up the range of main nationalities arriving in the Algarve, with the British accounting for a third of non-resident overnight stays. The presence of North Americans is on the rise, whose growth compared to 2019 reached 70 percent.