PRAIA, (The Southern African Times) – Cape Verdean hotels accommodated more than 21,000 customers in the second quarter of this year, double the previous quarter, the National Institute of Statistics (NIS) reported on Friday.
According to the report on guests movement in the second quarter (Q2) of the year, hotels received 21,562 guests during this period, while the number of overnight stays increased from 28,912 in the first quarter to 87,719.
However, these figures are significantly lower than the same period in 2019, before the pandemic, when Cape Verde received, 179,874 customers and 1,137,199 overnight stays in hotel establishments, and a record more than 819,000 tourists throughout the year.
According to the NIS, in Q2, Portugal remained “the main country from which tourists come” with 16.4 percent of the total number of received tourists.
The island of Sal was the most visited by tourists, accounting for 51.2 percent of entries into hotel establishments from April to June.
About 25 percent of Cape Verde’s GDP depends directly on tourism. However, demand fell by more than 70 percent in 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, triggering an economic crisis in the country.
