In the 3rd quarter of 2020, residents in Portugal took a total of 6.4 million trips, corresponding to a decrease of 26.7% (-64.9% in the 2nd Q 2020). Tourism trips within the national territory stood for 97.5% of the total trips (6.2 million), having decreased by 18.5%. Tourism trips to foreign countries declined by 84.8%, amounting to 161.9 thousand, representing 2.5% of the total (0.6% in the 2nd Q 2020).
In this quarter, “leisure, recreation or holidays” continued to be the main reason to travel (4.4 million trips, -22.5%), having increased its representativeness (70.0% of the total, compared to 66.2% in the same quarter a year earlier). The “visit to relatives or friends” as a motivation to travel corresponded to 1.6 million trips (24.4% of the total; -2.2 p.p.), declining by 32.6%.
“Hotels and similar” accounted for 25.0% of overnight stays resulting from tourism trips in the 3rd quarter of 2020, losing weight in total (-2.4 p.p.). “Free private accommodation” continued to stand as main option (61.0% of overnight stays, +4.4 p.p.).

Despite the circumstances determined by the COVID-19 pandemic, Statistics Portugal calls for the best collaboration of enterprises, households, and public bodies 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.