In the 1st quarter 2017, residents in Portugal made 4.0 million tourist trips, which stood for a 6.1% increase vis-à-vis the 1st Q 2016  (+6.2% in the 4th Q 2016), of which 10.3% had foreign destinations (9.4% in the 1st Q 2016).
While short term trips increased by 8.2%, the long duration ones decreased by 4.4%.
“Visit to relatives or friends” was the main reason behind 2.1 million trips (51.8% of the total, +0.2 p.p.), followed by “Leisure, recreation or holidays” with 1.4 million trips (33.9%, +1.0 p.p.). Furthermore, 395.7 thousand trips were made for “professional or business” reasons (9.9% of the total, -0.9 p.p.).
The emphasis went to the increase in the weight of air travel, reaching 10.8% in 1st Q 2017 (9.1% in the 1st Q 2016)."Free private accommodation" was the choice for ¾ of the overnight stays (+3.5 p.p.). "Hotels and similar accommodation” lost some relevance (-3.7 p.p.) and aggregated 19.1% of the total overnight stays.