Local accommodation in the Azores requires urgent action from regional authorities

The Azores Local Accommodation Association (ALA) today called for urgent intervention from the Regional Government and Visit Azores, the entity responsible for the external promotion of the archipelago, to avoid “a drastic reduction in the number of overnight stays”.

“In view of the January numbers and the forecasts for February and March, ALA warns of the urgent need for action by the Government of the Azores and VisitAzores, significantly increasing the promotion of the archipelago abroad, in order to generate more flow of tourists to the Azores and thus try to minimize losses”, argues the association.

In a press release, signed by the president of ALA, João Pinheiro, the association points out that, after December, also in January “the total number of overnight stays fell by 4.4% in the Azores”.

In other words, for the second consecutive month, the number of overnight stays in local accommodation “recorded a negative variation”, he adds.

In the note, ALA also highlights that the numbers already known “confirm” what the association “has been warning about in recent months, given the reduction in the number of Ryanair air connections”.

Citing data from the Azores Regional Statistics Service, ALA states that “of the responses declared in the month of January, 65.6% of active local accommodation establishments reported that they had no movement of guests”.

Corvo, Graciosa, Terceira, Santa Maria and São Miguel were the islands where the number of overnight stays fell, meaning that, even with positive numbers on the remaining islands, the total number of overnight stays in local accommodation fell by 4.4%, totaling 42,314 overnight stays, reinforces the association.

In January, at the 2nd Azores Local Accommodation Meeting, the president of ALA said that with the closure of the airline operator Ryanair’s base in Ponta Delgada, at the end of 2023, “a negative impact in the first quarter of 2024 was expected, especially affecting Local Accommodation”.

This warning, highlights the association, “is now being confirmed”.

In the statement, ALA also refers to “the news that Ryanair has no flights scheduled to and from the Azores, for the next IATA winter, (from the end of October to the end of March)”.

“If confirmed, the absence of this airline in the Azores, for almost six months, will be a severe blow to the region’s economy, which includes local accommodation, further accentuating the seasonality of tourism in the Azores”, says João Pinheiro in note.

Also according to ALA, “the concern increases even more” when “the privatization of Azores Airlines is also at stake, with all the doubts and uncertainties regarding the future of the company and the connections to and from the Azores”.

Local Accommodation also points to the slowdown in tourism at a national level as another possible “destabilizing factor” in the sector in the Azores, as the Portuguese mainland is a very important source market for the archipelago.

Therefore, he insists, “urgent action is needed” to avoid “a drastic reduction in the number of overnight stays”, which would have “a strong impact on the employment capacity” of the sector and the economy of the Azores.