Official Portal - Statistics Portugal
      
 

Tourism trips of residents declined by 59.1% domestically and barely existed (-98.5%) to destinations abroad
Tourism Demand of Residents
Tourism trips of residents declined by 59.1% domestically and barely existed (-98.5%) to destinations abroad - 2nd Quarter 2020
26 October 2020

Summary

In the 2nd quarter of 2020, residents in Portugal took a total of 2.0 million trips, corresponding to a decrease of 64.9%. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the declaration of the state of emergency in April and the state of calamity in May with its mandatory confinement measures contributed to this decline. Despite this decrease, there was a significant increase in the number of overnight stays spent by tourists away from their usual environment in April and May: 8.00 nights and 5.41 nights respectively.
In the 2nd quarter of 2020, tourism trips within the national territory stood for 99.4% of the total, having decreased by 59.1% when compared to the same period a year earlier. Tourism trips to foreign countries were almost inexistent (0.6% of the total) totalling 12.4 thousand (-98.5%).
“Leisure, recreation or holidays” was the main reason to travel in the 2nd quarter of 2020 (1.1 million trips, -61.1%), having increased its representativeness (53.8% of the total, compared to 48.6% in the same quarter a year earlier). The “visit to relatives or friends” as a motivation to travel corresponded to 686.6 thousand trips (34.9% of the total; -2.8 p.p.), declining by 67.5%.
“Hotels and similar” concentrated 10.8% of overnight stays resulting from tourism trips in the 2nd quarter of 2020, losing weight in total (-20.7 p.p.). “Free private accommodation” continued to stand as the main accommodation option (84.2% of overnight stays), being the only type of accommodation to strengthen its representativeness.

The information in this press release, referring to the 2nd quarter of 2020, reflects the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, both on the performance of the economic activity, namely on Tourism Demand, and on obtaining primary information. Despite the difficulties, we call for the best collaboration of enterprises, households, and public entities in responding to requests from Statistics Portugal. The quality of official statistics, particularly their capacity to identify the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, depends crucially on this collaboration, which Statistics Portugal is grateful for in advance.


Press release
Download the document PDF (357 Kb)