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Algarve Golf: Golf turnover almost 2 billion in Portugal

Date: 18/2/2008

These figures, calculated by the CNIG, the National Council of the Golf Industry, include "indirect income", including investments in real estate and in marketing.

Romeu Gonçalves, who will speak at the International Congress Sports Meeting08, told the Lusa Agency that only 20% of tourists' expenditure relates to golf itself, the remainder going to other areas including accommodation, restaurants and car hire.

He pointed out that tourists who come here to play golf generally have a daily expenditure well above the average.

Romeu Gonçalves said that in the last ten years the number of tourists playing golf in the Algarve had increased by 16.5% per year, and he estimated that the growth in the country as a whole must have been about 10%. The specialist predicts that the golf tourism market in the Algarve will see the same kind of growth as in the last decade, at least for the next five years.

He said that in 2006 there had been about 400,000 golfers in Portugal, of whom 300,000 were in the Algarve, with Portuguese tourists only accounting for 7% of those who play golf.

Romeu Gonçalves said that the income from golf was growing more slowly than the numbers of tourists owing to the fact that competition from other countries such as Spain and Turkey had led to prices being restrained and that, during the low season, golf plays a major part in hotel occupancy, constituting a factor which counteracts the seasonality of tourism in the region.

In annual terms, the peak for the golf industry occurs in the months from February to May and in October/November, while the sun and beach season (July and August) is a low season for golf.

The specialist said that over two thirds (68%) of overnight stays connected with golf came from the British market, a country where there are 1.2 million golfers, followed by the German, Portuguese, Irish and Scandinavian markets, accounting for between 5% and 8% each.

As regards the typical profile of golf tourists in Portugal, Romeu Gonçalves said that they were British, aged between 45 and 55, from a high or middle social class and male (three quarters of golfers are men), and he pointed out that in the UK golf is gaining in popularity in the middle classes.

In terms of the main obstacles to the development of golf tourism in the Algarve, Romeu Gonçalves identified the lack of direct flights to Faro from the main sending markets during the low season, which is the high season for golf, the small number of practitioners in Portugal (15,000) and the concentration on the British and, to a lesser extent, the German markets. Source: Observatório do Algarve

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