Tourism Intensity in Portugal: Albufeira's 162 Nights per Resident Became 122 When INE Revised the Population

Four numerators, two denominators

Tourism intensity has an official definition. Eurostat divides nights spent in hotels, short-stay accommodation and campsites by the resident population and publishes the result as nights per inhabitant. Its release of 16 October 2026 gave 7.0 for the EU in 2025, 24.5 for Croatia, 21.7 for Malta, 19.4 for Cyprus, 15.1 for Greece, 14.6 for Austria, 10.4 for Spain and 6.8 for France. The measure leaves out second homes, visits to friends and relatives, same-day visitors and establishments below ten beds, and Eurostat says it may understate pressure.

Portuguese sources express the same ratio in other units. Pordata's Retratos pages report the average number of tourists on a given day as a percentage of residents, which is nights divided by 365 divided by residents. For Albufeira, 7,705,992 nights divided by 365 gives the 21,112 tourists a day that Pordata publishes, and 44.3% of residents. Multiply any Pordata percentage by 3.65 to recover nights per resident. Pordata's national figure for 2024 is 2.1%, or 7.7 nights per resident. Turismo de Portugal's TravelBI glossary defines intensidade turística as the relation between nights in hotels, tourist villages, tourist apartments, local accommodation with more than ten beds and rural tourism, and the resident population. It defines nights per square kilometre and beds per thousand residents separately. The ETIS indicator used by the Monitur observatory at the University of the Algarve is the same daily-average construction, calculated for Algarve municipalities from 2014 to 2021.

INE's municipal nights cover establishments with ten or more beds, which leaves out local accommodation (AL) below that size. Three secondary sources agree on the exclusion, the CCDR-Norte methodology note, Diário de Notícias on 7 June 2023 and Postal on 15 November 2024, and none dates a change. The Algarve's tourism board says about 42,800 of its 43,700 AL registrations have fewer than ten beds. Eurostat's regulation lets member states leave out such units but requires an estimate of their nights, and Portugal's estimate was not visible to us. The numerator is therefore a floor, and how far below the true figure it sits is not officially measured.

Commercial rankings use arrivals or visitors. Holidu's 2023 index divides inbound arrivals by population and put Lisbon at 11.14 and Porto at 10.55. DiscoverCars' March 2026 ranking divides 10.4 million international visitors, taken from Euromonitor, by about 580,000 residents and gets 18 for Lisbon, and 7 million by about 250,000 for 28 in Porto. The City Destinations Alliance's City DNA report, which we saw only through Il Sole 24 Ore, gives Lisbon 28.02 and Porto 26.62 registered nights per resident for 2023. Lisbon therefore appears as 11, 18, 24 and 28 depending on the numerator, and the same data appears as 28 nights per resident or as 7.7 tourists on an average day per 100 residents. Arrivals ignore length of stay. DNoticias counted 8.14 guests per resident in Madeira for 2023 (2,090,849 guests, 256,622 residents), against 38 nights per resident on Eurostat's figures.

Portugal against Europe: seventh in the EU, 1.2 times the average

On Eurostat's inputs Portugal recorded 89,427,522 nights in 2025 and had 10,749,635 residents on 1 January 2025, which is 8.32 nights per resident (derived). The ratio was 8.28 in 2024, which matches the 8.3 and seventh place in the EU that Hosteltur reported from Eurostat on 30 October 2025, and 7.51 in 2019. Nights are up 15.3% on 2019 and the population on Eurostat's series is up 4.0%, so the ratio has risen 10.8%. The EU27 figure rose from 6.44 to 6.98 over the same period. Portugal sits 1.19 times above the EU average and at about a third of Croatia's 24.46.

Our derived values for Spain, Greece, Croatia, Malta, Cyprus, Austria and Italy match the figures Eurostat published on 16 October 2026 to within 0.1. Italy's 9.1 reflects a reported rise of 14.9% in nights, to 535,463,245, that looks like a method change. We found no explanation, and we treat Italy's change since 2019 as unreliable.

Regionally the picture is the same. Eurostat's regional release in August 2026, on 2024 data, put the South Aegean first at 127.2 nights per inhabitant, then the Ionian Islands at 102.6 and Bolzano at 68.9, with seven regions above 50 and 84 of 244 above the EU average. No Portuguese region was named in the coverage we read. Our own calculation from Eurostat's NUTS 2 nights and population, for a hand-picked set of 16 regions, puts the Algarve at 47.5 in 2024. That is eighth of the 16, between Tirol (50.6) and the Canary Islands (44.4), with Madeira at 37.3, the Azores at 12.7 and Grande Lisboa at 9.4. Eurostat's Statistics Explained page lists nine NUTS 3 regions above 100 nights per resident in 2024, led by Zakynthos at 162.7 and Istria at 132.4. None is Portuguese. The Algarve's rank among all EU NUTS 2 regions is not established, because we compared only 16.

Regions: a 36-fold spread, and the Algarve's ratio fell

Eurostat publishes nights for all 26 NUTS III regions under the 2024 classification from 2020 onwards, with nothing withheld in 2024 or 2025. Dividing by the population on 1 January 2025 gives a range from 46.6 in the Algarve to 1.3 in Tâmega e Sousa and Lezíria do Tejo, a roughly 36-fold spread. Four regions exceed 10 nights per resident: the Algarve, Madeira at 38.4, Alentejo Litoral at 21.9 and the Azores at 13.0. Grande Lisboa is fifth at 9.3, ahead of Alentejo Central (7.8), Médio Tejo (7.6) and the Porto metropolitan area (5.8).

The Algarve's nights were flat on 2019, 22,941,654 against 22,992,874 on the NUTS 2 series, while Eurostat's population rose 7.2%, from 459,597 to 492,747. The ratio fell from 50.0 to 46.6 as a result. INE's revised end-2025 population for the Algarve is 578,032, 24% above the Census count of 467,495, and on that base the ratio is 39.7. That figure divides 2025 nights by a year-end population, so the timing lowers it slightly. Our Algarve tourism statistics article used the old base throughout.

Madeira moved the other way. Its nights rose 33.2% on Eurostat's series, from 7,474,813 to 9,952,837, against population growth of 3.6%, which lifted the ratio from 29.9 to 38.4. On the regional statistics office's end-2025 population of 266,130 it is 37.4, and on that office's own nights of 12.9 million, which include all AL, it is 48.5. The gap between the two night counts is documented in our Madeira tourism statistics article. The Azores rose from 9.8 to 13.0 and Norte from 3.27 to 4.28, or 4.17 on INE's revised end-2025 population of 3,790,554.

The revision hits Greater Lisbon hardest among the regions we could test. INE's revised end-2025 population for Grande Lisboa is 2,415,261, which is 12.0% above Eurostat's 2,156,612 a year earlier, so its ratio falls from 9.3 to 8.3. The two figures are a year apart and from different vintages, so 12% is an upper bound on the pure revision effect. Foreign guests account for 80.8% of Grande Lisboa's nights, and our Lisbon tourism statistics article covers the airport ceiling that limits how far that can grow.

Alentejo Litoral is the quiet outlier at 21.9 nights per resident, third in the country, and the only one of the top five regions where foreign guests are a minority of nights, at 35.8%. It contains Grândola, whose Comporta coast reaches 30.1 nights per resident on the municipal data below, and Odemira at 8.3.

The annual ratio hides the peak. In August 2025 the Algarve recorded 3,707,472 nights, equal to 7.5 nights for every resident in that month alone, and its August was 5.26 times its January. July and August together hold 30% of the Algarve's annual nights. Madeira's peak month was 4.00 nights per resident and 1.67 times its trough, and Grande Lisboa's was 0.99 and 1.96. Eurostat holds monthly nights only at NUTS 2 level, so we cannot show the same pattern for Albufeira or Funchal.

Municipalities: Albufeira first by a wide margin

Pordata's Retratos pages carry INE's 2024 municipal nights. We read 40 municipalities, which is a sample of the 308 councils, because Pordata's ranking table would not render for us. Among those 40, Albufeira leads on every denominator. Its ratio is 161.7 on the old population, 121.6 on the revised one and 174.5 on the Census count. The next municipality, Porto Santo, is about half as intense at 89.8 on the old basis and 72.3 on the revised one, followed by Vila do Bispo at 79.9 and 67.3 and Lagoa at 69.7 and 61.1.

Albufeira has 47,495 beds, which is 75 for every 100 residents on the revised population and 100 on the old one, so its ratio reflects capacity as much as demand. Funchal, with 6,321,734 nights and a ratio of 55.7, is the only city of more than 100,000 people in the top ten, and Lagos at 41.4 is seventh. Our earlier 163.5 for Albufeira came from 2023 nights and INE's 2023 estimate, and it is superseded.

The two big cities look alike. Lisboa recorded 15,740,364 nights in 2024, which is 23.9 per resident on the revised population (27.7 on Pordata's old basis and 27.3 on the 575,739 residents RTP printed). Porto recorded 6,279,499 nights, which is 23.0 on the revised population and 25.2 on the old. On the revised basis they share a ratio with Aljezur (23.3) and Tavira (23.0), towns of 7,456 and 33,006 residents. Cascais is at 6.6 and Sintra at 1.6, which is the day-tripper pattern in our Sintra and Cascais visitor statistics: Parques de Sintra sold 3,399,869 monument entries in 2024 against 735,048 nights slept in the municipality.

The coastal towns from earlier articles reappear. Nazaré is at 15.6 nights per resident on 267,001 nights, Peniche at 8.3 and Mafra, the council that contains Ericeira, at about 4.0 on the old basis because its revised population was not retrieved. Our earlier ratios of 17.4 for Nazaré and 10.1 for Peniche divided 2023 nights by INE's 2023 estimates, and they are superseded. The nights base also differs by a year, 273,614 against 267,001 for Nazaré.

The people counted as residents have changed as much as the count. AIMA data reported by Lusa and Postal on 3 October 2026 shows 26,371 foreign nationals living in Albufeira, 41.6% of its revised population, and 39.6% in Lagos, 31.5% in Loulé and 29.6% in Portimão. The Algarve as a whole is 34.5%. Many of them work in the accommodation and food services that sit on the other side of the ratio. Our foreign resident population article covers the national count, which INE puts at 1,597,539 foreign nationals, 14.0% of the population.

Two errors that point in opposite directions

INE revised 2021 to 2024 with the same method, so the series is consistent, but the base moved. Its end-2021 estimate is now 10,599,117, 2.5% above the Census count. The annual increases are 330,587 in 2022, 274,643 in 2023, 182,875 in 2024 and 36,809 in 2025. Estimates up to 2020 are census-based and unchanged, which is why the 2019 denominators in this article did not move and the 2025 ones did. A fair comparison of 2019 with 2025 therefore needs the old series before 2021 and the revised series after it, and we found no published bridge by municipality.

The size of the revision varies with how fast a council grew. Albufeira's ratio falls 24.8% from the old basis to the revised one, Odemira's 24.1%, Loulé's 20.9%, Portimão's 18.8%, Vila do Bispo's 15.8%, Lagos's 14.8% and Lisboa's 13.8%. Funchal's falls 5.2% and Ourém's 4.8%. Albufeira's timing mismatch is small: dividing by the 2024 revised population of 63,484 gives 121.4 instead of 121.6.

The numerator moves the other way. INE counts AL only above ten beds, which gave 11,977,521 nights in 2025, or 14.6% of the national total. Platform nights reported by Airbnb, Booking and Expedia to Eurostat reached 49.5 million, which is 4.1 times INE's AL figure nationally and 6.5 times in the Algarve, as our AL against hotels article documents. The Algarve's tourism board estimates nearly 29 million Algarve nights in 2023 against INE's 20.4 million, a gap of 42%. That estimate comes from a regional plan built on booking data and is not an official statistic. Taken at face value it would raise the Algarve's ratio by 42% while the population revision lowers it by 15%, and the net is unknown.

Neither side counts second-home occupants. In the 2021 Census, 38.6% of Algarve dwellings were secondary or seasonal, and secondary residences rose about 42% between 2001 and 2021 (Barlavento, 13 July 2026). Nobody publishes a count of the people in them by council. A ratio of nights in registered beds to registered residents measures accommodation use. It does not count second-home occupants, and it cannot say how crowded a street is.

No official threshold exists

No Portuguese or European body that we could find sets a numeric limit on nights per resident. ESPON's tourism methodology handbook says there is no strict threshold for carrying capacity and recommends percentile cut-offs agreed with stakeholders. A 2026 study in Tourism Economics proposes quintile risk bands that are relative to the sample. Which? used the European Commission's tourism pressure measure in May 2025 without a threshold. Turismo de Portugal's Plano Turismo +Sustentável 25-30 describes a monitoring group of more than 60 entities and states no target or intensity indicator. The Estratégia Turismo 2035 was approved and not yet published as of 22 October 2026. Observador and Barlavento report targets of almost 50 million international tourists and more than €53 billion in receipts in 2035, and no intensity indicator.

The thresholds that do exist measure housing. Lisbon's second amendment to its AL regulation, notice 29926-A/2025/2 in the Diário da República of 5 December 2025 as summarised by GuestReady, divides AL registrations by permanent dwellings. It freezes new registrations where the ratio is 10% or more and requires council authorisation from 5%. On 1 February 2026 the council cancelled 6,765 registrations. Madeira's limit of 3,000 visits a day at Fanal is cited by an opposition party without an issuing instrument, and Sintra's cap of 5,100 a day at Pena comes from the park company's own dossier. These are rationing rules for single sites and housing ratios. None is an intensity limit for a municipality.

The evidence that intensity raises rents is thinner than the debate suggests. The Banco de Portugal's June 2026 Bulletin found median sale prices per square metre more than doubled between 2017 and 2025 in 157 municipalities, and rents more than doubled in 23 of 184 between 2017 and 2024, led by Grândola, Sines and Moita. It attributes Algarve prices partly to demand from non-residents, and the summary we read does not mention AL or tourism intensity. Franco and Santos (2021) found that a one-point rise in a municipality's Airbnb share goes with 3.7% higher house prices, and 3.2% in Lisbon and Porto parishes. Those are prices and not rents. We found no study that correlates nights per resident with rents by municipality.

What this means for travelers, businesses and analysts

Travelers. The ratio tells you where a place runs near its limit and says little about how it feels to visit. Albufeira at 122 nights per resident, Porto Santo at 72 and Vila do Bispo at 67 are resort economies. The Algarve puts 30% of its nights into July and August, 7.5 nights per resident in August alone against 1.0 in Grande Lisboa, and in May or October it carries about 58% of August's nights. Lisbon and Porto share a ratio of about 23 with Aljezur and Tavira, so the number cannot tell you which of them is crowded. Our Albufeira travel guide covers where to stay and when to go.

Tourism businesses and investors. Nights per resident is a pressure indicator and not a yield measure, and it rests on a denominator that has just moved by 6% nationally and 25% in Albufeira. The Algarve's nights are flat on 2019 while its population rose and its accommodation revenue grew about 47%, so the region's growth has come from price. INE's exclusion of small AL means the investable base is larger than the official count. Grande Lisboa's ratio is 8.3 to 9.3 depending on vintage, close to the national 8.3, with a peak-to-trough ratio of 1.96 against the Algarve's 5.26. Three events would change this assessment: INE publishing revised population by council, which lets every Pordata municipal ratio be recomputed; Eurostat adopting the revised population, which lowers every national ratio; and the Estratégia Turismo 2035 naming an intensity indicator.

Journalists and analysts. Safe to cite: Portugal at 8.3 nights per inhabitant in 2024, seventh in the EU against an EU average of 6.7 (Eurostat via Hosteltur); 8.32 for 2025 on Eurostat's inputs and 7.85 on INE's revised population (derived); the EU at 7.0 and Croatia at 24.5 for 2025 (Eurostat, 16 October 2026); the Algarve at 46.6 on Eurostat's population and 39.7 on INE's revised one (derived); Albufeira at 162 on Pordata's old basis and 122 on the revised one (derived). Do not repeat that Lisbon has 18 tourists per resident, that Porto has 28, that Madeira has 40 per local, or that Portugal had 80 million nights in 2025. The first two come from commercial rankings with unstated formulas, the third has no source and the fourth is about 9 million below Eurostat's count. This article adds a column to the series spine, nights per resident on the old and revised denominators, and a correction to earlier articles. Per-resident ratios in the airport, Algarve and Madeira articles used Eurostat's 1 January 2025 population and are 5.9% too high nationally. Airport passengers per resident, for example, fall from 6.86 to 6.48 on the revised base.