“Expectations are quite positive. We are talking about an occupancy rate in hotels and local accommodations always above 90%,” stated Henrique Carvalho da Silva of APHORT in a telephone interview, regarding the forecasts for this year’s Easter period, marked on April 20.
Henrique Carvalho da Silva indicated that Easter is “historically” a particularly strong period, especially for the Spanish market and, of course, the domestic market as well.
“It is a period of high demand,” as, in addition to Good Friday being a holiday in Portugal, in Spain, both Thursday and Friday of Easter are holidays, and “generally, Spaniards travel a lot during that week.”
In addition to the historical tradition of significant tourist demand, Henrique Carvalho da Silva emphasized the occurrence of several long weekends due to national and European holidays.
There is the April 25 holiday—Freedom Day—following Easter on a Friday, the May 1 holiday—International Workers’ Day—on a Thursday, and finally, the May 8 holiday—Victory in Europe Day, marking the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II in 1945, which also falls on a Thursday this year.
The late Easter with a forecast of more spring-like weather and the three holidays inviting extended weekends are the conditions expected to bring “a bit more demand than in other years,” considered Henrique Carvalho da Silva.
The fact that Easter in 2025 falls later “will likely mean better weather conditions and obviously more demand than, for instance, last year, which was on March 31,” added the APHORT representative.
However, Henrique Carvalho da Silva pointed out that nowadays, people tend to make reservations “closer to the date,” which makes it harder to provide precise numbers about hotel occupancy rates for Easter well in advance.
“We don’t yet have precise data. APHORT itself recently requested information from its members to obtain more concrete data, but we still have no definite responses because more accurate figures become available only closer to the date,” he explained.
