More than 285,000 people came to the Azores in August, marking a new record for the destination, the Regional Statistics Service (SREA) has revealed.
More specifically, the number of passengers coming to the Azores was up by 9.7 per cent compared to the same time last year, while passenger arrivals through interisland routes were most common, as 137,670 people came to the country.
Furthermore, the number of passenger arrivals by air was very high – 259,916, surpassing 2022 figures. Passengers on international flights increased by 20.5 per cent compared to the same period last year, with a total of 43,391 arrivals.
Regarding the type of flight, there is a positive year-on-year variation of 5.9 per cent of passengers boarded on inter-island flights, 9.5 per cent on territorial flights and 18.1 per cent on international flights,
The same data show that all islands in the archipelago showed positive monthly year-on-year variations in passenger arrivals in August, with even Graciosa island having a growth of 0.1 per cent, with four more passengers than in 2022.
However, the most evident increase in the number of arrivals was recorded in Sao Miguel – as 12.1 per cent more passengers arrived, followed by Santa Maria (9.4 per cent), Flores (9.3 per cent) and Pico (8.7 per cent). Corvo also saw a surge of 7.4 per cent in new arrivals, followed by Sao Jorge at seven per cent, Terceira at 6.7 per cent and Faial at 5.1 per cent.
Tourism is one of the most important industries in Portugal, where a good share of the population is employed. Portugal’s accommodation, catering, and related activities sectors saw a significant increase in employment, marking a total number of 332,400 workers in the second quarter of 2023.
TravelBI data show that the number of workers in this industry has increased by 28.8 per cent, while the workforce in the accommodation and similar sectors represented 6.7 per cent of the overall economy for the year’s second quarter. That is up by 0.4 percentage points compared to Q2 2022.
Statista data shows that in 2021, the Portuguese tourism sector witnessed a decrease in its workforce, with about 332,400 fewer employees due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This accounts for a 1.9 per cent decline compared to figures in the previous year. The country was home to around 74,000 active tourism companies during the same period.
