In the 3rd quarter 2017, the number of tourism trips taken by residents in Portugal increased by 1.1% vis-à-vis the same quarter of 2016 (+8.3% in the 2nd Q 2017), in a total of 7.8 million. Trips with a foreign destination grew the most (+8.5%, from +14.8% in the 2nd Q 2017), the equivalent to 10.1% of the total.
“Leisure, recreation or holidays” as a purpose to travel was behind 60.3% of the total trips (+0.4 p.p., amounting to 4.7 million), followed by “visit to relatives or friends” with 32.9% (+0.6 p.p., totalling 2.6 million trips). Travelling for “professional or business” reasons was at the origin of 3.8% of all tourist trips (-0.8 p.p., a total of 295.6 thousand).
"Free private accommodation” was the preferred accommodation option in trips taken by residents (61.9% of total overnight stays) and with a 1.2 p.p. raise in its share.