The Regional Government, through the Regional Secretariat for Tourism and Culture, rejects any excess of tourists in Madeira, therefore putting aside that there is a situation of ‘Overtourism’.
In a clarification that arises following the focus that has been placed on the subject of the existence or not of excess tourism, the secretary led by Eduardo Jesus recalls that, internationally, it was established that the determination of the pressure index of tourist activity in the territory would result from the relationship between the number of overnight stays and the resident population.
In this sense, “applied this formula to the Regional reality, results in an index of 38.3 (9.6 million overnight stays/250,744 residents in RAM), admitting, here, the total of overnight stays of the entire sector (hotel offer and local accommodation )”, they maintain.
As examples contrary to what is happening in Madeira, the Tourism Secretariat points to Lanzarote (Canary Islands) and Menorca (Balearic Islands), “where the index in question is well above 100, in these specific cases: 139.4 and 124, 9”.
In addition, the Regional Government bodies point out that Madeira “is the only Portuguese tourism region that has a POT – Tourism Management Plan”, noting that it “resulted from the work of a team made up of professionals from various areas and experts in land management”.
Consequently, the Secretariat recalls that the POT had a limit of 40,000 beds, until the year 2027, a situation that, even so, “even if this hotel offer evolved towards that considered limit, the index that would result from the formula in question, admitting the average bed occupancy rate, verified in the year 2022 (61.3%), would never be threatening from the point of view of the consequences for the destination”, they note.
The Tourism authority also clarifies that, at the end of last year, “the number of beds available in the hotel offer was 33,219, thus far below the ceiling established for the Region”.
In view of these arguments, Madeira “does not register any threat from the issue in question” and “the phenomenon of ‘Overtourism’ does not occur in the Autonomous Region of Madeira”.