Residents' tourist activity is already surpassing pre-pandemic levels. Between January and March of this year, residents in Portugal made 4.7 million tourist trips, which corresponds to a year-on-year growth of 195.6% and a slight increase of 0.3% compared to the first quarter of 2019, the last year before the pandemic.

According to data published by the National Statistics Institute (INE), in the first quarter of 2022, the vast majority of trips (90.5%) took place in national territory, corresponding to 4.2 million trips – an increase of 175.8% compared to the same period in 2021 and an increase of 3.6% when compared to 2019.

Trips abroad, which totalled 443,400 trips (9.5%), soared 846.9% compared to the first three months of last year, but were still 23% below 2019 levels.

Free accommodation

“Visiting family or friends” was the main motivation for residents to travel in the first quarter of this year. It was equivalent to 2.2 million trips, representing increases of 187.7% compared to the same period in 2021 and 4.4% compared to 2019. The second category was “leisure, recreation or holidays”, with 1.8 million of trips taken (39.2% of the total), a year-on-year growth of 342.2% (+3.0% compared to the first quarter of 2019).

“Hotels and the like” concentrated 21.9% of overnight stays resulting from tourist trips in the first quarter of 2022, recording a gain of 16.3 percentage points. “Free private accommodation” remained the main option for accommodation (71% of overnight stays).