In the 4th quarter 2017, tourism trips taken by residents in Portugal amounted to 4.75 million, corresponding to an increase of 7.4% vis-à-vis the same quarter of 2016 (+1.1% in the 3rd Q). Trips with a foreign destination represented 9.9% of the total and grew above the domestic ones (+17.1% compared with +6.5%; +8.5% and +0.4%, in the same order, in the 3rd Q).
Trips to "visit relatives or friends" (2.6 million, 54.6% of the total) lost some representativeness (-4.8 p.p.), reinforcing the weight of trips for reasons of “leisure, recreation or holidays” (+5.0 p.p.) with a total of 1.6 million trips (33.2% of the total). The "professional or business" trips (405.1 thousand) weighed 8.5% in the total (+0.3 p.p.).
Overnight stays spent in “hotel and similar establishments” with a 15.5% share, grew by 1.1 p.p. in this indicator.
When considering the whole year 2017, tourism trips increased by 5.0% (+5.4% in 2016), amounting to 21.2 million. "Leisure, recreation or holidays” was the main reason to travel, corresponding to 9.6 million trips (45.2% of the total, +1.4 p.p.), followed by “visit relatives or friends” with 9.3 million (44.0%, -0.1 p.p.).