The organisation states that while activity is advancing at a more moderate and uneven rate, the figures for the period to date do not indicate a situation of decline; it is important to make the distinction between a slowing down of the rate of growth and an actual contraction of the market.

From January to June, the total number of foreign guests was 9.187 million, which is a 1.9% increase (adding 173,700 more visitors) on the corresponding period of last year.

The number of overnight stays by non-residents increased by 0.8% to 25.972 million, and foreign revenue in the sector rose by 4.2% to €12.87 billion, giving a tourism trade balance of €9.71 billion. The association attributes the idea of a downturn to isolated fluctuations, for example, the 0.6% decrease in foreign overnight stays noted in June. It stresses that individual monthly variations should not be mistaken for the overall half-year performance.

Foreign market

The development of the sector also shows changes in the characteristics of the countries supplying tourists and in the differences between regions. As for revenue, large increases were seen in countries such as Brazil (+18.1%), the United States (+8.0%), Spain (+7.1%), Germany (+4.6%) and the United Kingdom (+4.4%); these increases cancelled out the 5.7% fall in demand from France.

Within the regions, eight of the nine regions experienced an increase in tourism revenue, the Alentejo (+9.0%), Madeira (+8.4%) and the Algarve (+7.7%) leading the way, while the West was the only region to show a slight decrease of 0.6%.

Even though the result is positive, ANAV points out that Portugal's growth is below the world average, the sector having grown by 3.3% domestically as compared to 4.0% globally. The association names a number of serious challenges: recovering declining markets, increasing the length of visitors' stays, distributing demand more evenly across the year, and protecting business profitability.

The data referred to here comes from the information released by the National Association of Travel Agencies (ANAV).