In the 2nd quarter 2017, the number of tourist trips taken by residents in Portugal increased by 8.3% vis-à-vis the same quarter of 2016 (+6.1% in the 1st Q 2017), in a total of 4.7 million. Trips with a foreign destination grew by 14.8% (+15.7% in the 1st Q 2017), the equivalent to 11.3% of the total.
The acceleration of the tourist trips taken by residents in the 2nd quarter 2017 was influenced by the different Easter calendar, during the 2nd quarter of 2017 while in 2016 occurred in the 1st quarter.
“Visit to relatives or friends” as a purpose to travel was behind 45.2% of the total trips (+2.3 p.p., amounting to 2.1 million), followed by “leisure, recreation or holidays” with 41.9% (+1.5 p.p., totaling 1.9 million trips). Travelling for “professional or business” reasons was at the reason of 8.7% of all tourist trips (-3.5 p.p., i.e. 405.3 thousand).
"Hotels and similar accommodation” became more relevant (+1.3 p.p.) and aggregated 24.7% of the total overnight stays generated in tourist trips.