Foreign tourism to Portugal surpasses pre-COVID levels in July

LISBON, Aug 31 (Reuters) – The variety of international vacationers visiting Portugal barely surpassed pre-pandemic ranges in July for the primary time because the finish of most COVID-19 restrictions, information from the Nationwide Statistics Institute (INE) confirmed on Wednesday.

Greater than 1.8 million foreigners stayed in Portuguese motels final month, up from round 600,000 a yr in the past, when the nation nonetheless had some restrictions in place, and barely above 1.78 million in July of 2019, which was a document yr for tourism.

Portugal’s tourism sector accounted for nearly 15% of gross home product earlier than the pandemic that broke out in early 2020, crippling world journey.

Nonetheless, the cumulative variety of international guests within the first seven months of the yr, at 8.1 million, was nonetheless about 1,000,000 in need of the identical interval of 2019.

Guests from neighbouring Spain accounted for the most important share of complete arrivals in July with 285,900, adopted by Britain and america, which has lately grown as a supply of tourism to Portugal.

Tourism has been recovering not least because of Portugal’s location on Europe’s southwest tip removed from the struggle ravaging Ukraine, and folks’s normal notion of it as a protected place. Nonetheless, the sector faces the identical challenges of staffing shortages and rampant inflation as most different European nations.

Reporting by Patrícia Vicente Rua; Enhancing by Andrei Khalip and Chizu Nomiyama

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