The Azores Situation Report Wednesday 26th July 2023
Shuttle’ has already transported 18,626 people to Lagoa do Fogo
A total of 18,626 people have taken the ‘shuttle’ trip to visit Lagoa do Fogo, on the island of São Miguel, in the Azores, since it started operating on June 15th, says the Regional Government.
With ‘shuttle’ transport in access to Lagoa do Fogo, car circulation was limited to residents’ vehicles and prohibited to ‘rent-a-car’ cars.
The ‘shuttle’ is free for residents and costs five euros for non-residents.
This transport service, provided by the company Atlântico Energy, leaves from Caldeira Velha, in the municipality of Ribeira Grande, and ends at Casa da Água, in Lagoa, and then takes the opposite route.
Transport operates on a ‘hop on hop off’ basis and covers approximately 14 kilometres, passing through six tourist attractions, from 9 am to 7 pm, every day of the week, including national, regional or municipal holidays, until the 30th of September.
The day of the week most sought after by visitors to Lagoa do Fogo is Saturday, followed by Monday and Sunday, with Wednesday being the day with the least demand.
The most popular times are from 10:00 am to 11:00 am, from 11:00 am to 12:00 pm and from 12:00 pm to 1:00 pm.
The average number of tickets per day is 454, with the maximum number of tickets sold in one day (863) being recorded on June 19 and the minimum (103) on July 7 (excluding the first two days of operation) of the service.
The ‘shuttle’ service is provided with three buses (initially there were two, until the second half of July, due to technical problems).
Regarding support infrastructures, according to the Regional Secretariat for Tourism, Mobility and Transport of the Azores, there are car parks in Caldeira Velha (capacity for 101 spaces), Casa da Água (60 spaces) and Casa da Água (100 spaces) and two spaces for additional parking (for visitors in their own car/residents) at the Pico da Barrosa viewpoint and at the Lagoa do Fogo viewpoint.
The Tourism Indicator predicts that around 404,000 overnight stays in tourist accommodation will have been recorded throughout the region in June”, reads a publication by SREA, published on its website, referring to overnight stays in traditional hotels, rural tourism and local accommodation.
According to the SREA tourist activity report for June 2022, the region recorded 359,986 overnight stays in that month, a number that had already surpassed the figure for June 2019 (321,184), pre-pandemic of covid-19.
Compared to June 2022, SREA estimates point to a growth of 12.23% in 2023.
Compared to June 2019, the increase is 25.78%, with a difference of more than 82 thousand overnight stays.
The publication also highlights the number of passengers disembarking at Azores airports in June, coming from territorial flights (from mainland Portugal or Madeira) and international flights.
According to data previously revealed by SREA, the Azores recorded in June a record number of passengers disembarking by air, a total of 225,693.
The largest number of landings was passengers from inter-island flights (98,825), which registered a growth of 17.4%, compared to the same month in 2022.
It was among passengers on international flights that there was the biggest increase (33.9%), with a total of 35,195 disembarkations.
Passengers from other regions of the national territory reached 91,673, 10.1% more than in the same period last year.
According to SREA, the Tourism Indicator (TI) “aims to estimate the general evolution of economic activity in the tourism sector in the Autonomous Region of the Azores”.
“The IT-Azores results from the addition of overnight stays recorded in the three types of tourist accommodation and is released about three weeks before the publication of the Tourist Activity highlight”, reads in the publication.
The estimate of overnight stays in hotels, rural tourism and local accommodation “relies to the values recorded in the Survey on Staying Guests in Hotels and other accommodation” and to “extrapolation of trends according to the expected response rate in each case “.