Tourists Spend More and More In Portugal

Tourism has a positive impact on the Portuguese economy, which is 4.3% of GDP

Between years 1996 and 2015, Portuguese travel and tourism exports almost tripled. That is, the value that foreign tourists spend traveling to Portugal'; staying in hotels and dining in restaurants has increased exponentially in the last 20 years, especially since 2009, with a 64% increase.

In 1996, the value of this type of services was around € 3.7 billion and has since risen to € 11.4 billion. This growth was relatively stable, but the biggest rise has been in the last six years. At the same time, imports of services, related to tourism and travel have also increased, but at a slower pace. They went from EUR 1.8 billion in 1996 to EUR 3.6 billion in 2015.

Graph 1. Amount spent by tourists in Portugal (in bln Euros)

In 2015, 6 out of 10 (or 58%) hotel guests in Portugal were foreigners. This value has been growing substantially. Exports of services account for 28% of total sales abroad, with tourism revenues standing out. The balance of travel and tourism has a positive impact on the Portuguese economy of 4.3%/ GDP, which is more than double the value of 1996.

Graph 2. Impact of tourism on GDP

In 2015, catering companies generated €8.4 billion, representing 5.4% of gross value added (GVA), that is, more than one in each 20 euros of wealth comes from these two activities.  From the countries that visit Portugal the most is the United Kingdom, with more than eight million overnight stays by British in 2015. On the second place is Germany, with 4.6 million overnight stays, followed by Spain and France.