Praia, Cape Verde, 6 April – The number of guests that checked into Cape Verde’s hotels in 2008 rose by 6 percent in 2008 against 2007, the country’s National Statistic Institute (INE) said Friday in Praia.

Figures from INE showed that 333,345 tourists had checked into Cape Verde’s hotel units generating 1.82 million overnight stays, or a rise of 27.5 percent year on year.

The INE said that most of the overnight stays related to tourists from the United Kingdom (23.2 percent), followed by Italy (18.6 percent), Portugal (14.9 percent) and Germany (13 percent), whilst in relation to internal tourism, Cape Verdeans accounted for 6.3 percent.

Sal Island is the preferred destination of most of the visitors, 73.7 percent of overnight stays, followed by Boavista (13.1 percent), Santiago (7.5 percent) and Sao Vicente (3.6 percent).

The occupancy rate per bed rose from 40 percent in 2007 to 48 percent in 2008, and teh biggest rate of occupancy is for Sal Island (59 percent).

The INEs figures go against those presented recently by local tour operators, which have complained of a “significant fall” in the occupancy rate of the hotel units across the archipelago. (macauhub)