Over the last five years, tourism has doubled

  • ECO News
  • 3 August 2018

Over the last five years, tourism in Portugal has doubled. In 2012, the country had little more than two thousand touristic accommodation related businesses, which welcomed around 13 million guests.

By the end of 2017, Portugal records around six thousand of these tourism establishments, welcoming over 24 million guests and billing around three million euros.

The data was released by the Portuguese Office for National Statistics (INE) last Friday, and it refers to data from 2017, a year that broke all records for the sector in Portugal.

That year, for the first time, Portugal went over the 20 million tourists bar. Instead of the expected 20 million, Portuguese tourism establishments welcomed around 24 million tourists, which represented a 13% increase in comparison to 2016, and almost double of 2012’s records (13.8 million tourists).

The type of tourists Portugal welcomed has also changed. While in 2012, domestic tourism and foreign tourism had the same weight, 2017 changed significantly: 60% of the guests were non-residents in the country.

The evolution in terms of revenue is also notorious, as in 2012 there were 2,028 touristic establishments billing around €1.85bn, in comparison to the 5,850 hotels and accommodations available that invoiced around €3.8bn.

Numbers doubled over the last five years

Guests, Accommodations, and Profits

The numbers are even higher if local tourist accommodation, which is out of INE’s scope.

There are 72 thousand local tourist accommodations registered in the National Records. Accordingly, to the Portuguese Local Accommodation Association, this type of accommodation offers an average of two rooms, each of them with an average of two beds.