According to the Porto e Norte Tourism Board, the region had around 448,000 guests in September and “recorded an accumulated value of 2.251 million guests between January and September”, which puts the region at the top of the national rankings.

Data from the National Institute of Statistics "are excellent signs given what is still a pandemic context", highlights the tourism board, noting that the accumulated value of guests since the beginning of the year is "already close to 50 percent of the value registered in 2019”, before the Covid-19 pandemic.

Luís Pedro Martins, president of Tourism of Porto e Norte, stated that, “in 2023, the region will recover the levels it had in 2019”.

According to the official, the numbers reflect the strategy implemented by that entity "to rebuild the sector, supporting the replacement of air connectivity, boosting internationalisation through digitalisation, accelerating the structuring of products according to the profile of the tourist in the post-pandemic and, perhaps more importantly, believing that the government will maintain support for companies in the sector”.

“The tourism sector is back, let's hope the pandemic doesn't dictate new constraints. The recovery will be faster the smaller the impact of the wave that is now being experienced and that is already visible in some European countries”, he concluded.