Cape Verde’s hotel establishments welcomed 139,000 guests in the first quarter of 2012, which was a year-on-year rise of 25.4 percent, the archipelago’s National Statistics Institute (INE) said Wednesday in Praia.

In absolute terms, INE said, another 28,000 tourists stayed at Cape Verde’s hotels than in the same period of 2011, most of which, or 21.1 percent of the total, were from the United Kingdom, followed by tourists from France (16.3 percent), Germany (11.8 percent), Portugal (9.5 percent) and the Netherlands (6.4 percent).

British tourists were also those that stayed in Cape Verde for longest, with an average stay of 8.7 nights, or 28.7 percent of the total, followed by Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Italy, with 13.7 percent, 12.3 percent, 7.1 percent, and 6.9 percent, respectively.

Most tourists, or 38 percent of the total, stayed at hotels on Sal Island. (macauhub)