Portugal earns record revenue from tourism in 2022, exceeds pre-pandemic period

Monday, February 20, 2023

According to data released by Banco de Portugal (BdP), the revenue earned by tourist activity last year stood at record 21,107.16 million euros, up 15.4% from 18,291 million euros in 2019.

Despite the strong rise in 2022 which is the best year ever for Portugal in terms of tourism revenues, this indicator was still below 22 billion euros, the prediction by Minister of Economy and Maritime Affairs, António Costa e Silva, who estimated a 20% increase in tourist revenues from 2019.

“Portugal ended the year 2022 with 22,000 million euros, which is absolutely extraordinary because, in one year, we not only managed to recover what we did in 2019 but also surpassed the results by another 20 per cent”, the Minister had said earlier.

Portugal’s Minister of Economy said that there were many people who thought that in order to recover pre-pandemic levels it would take about three, four or five years while stressing that the country managed to recover during last year alone.

The Minister considers that in order for Portugal to achieve one of the goals of being among the most sustainable destinations in the world it is needed to work together, developing collaborative networks.

Meanwhile, income from tourist accommodation reached five billion euros in 2022 which is an an increase of 114.7 per cent compared to 2021 and a 16.5 per cent increase compared to 2019.

According to the National Statistics Institute (INE), in 2022 tourist accommodation units in Portugal recorded 26.5 million visitors and 69.5 million overnight stays, representing an increase of 83.3 per cent and 86.3 per cent respectively compared to 2021.

The data provided by the National Statistics Institute also reveals that the average stay of foreign tourists was longer by about three days, while that of Portuguese citizens was by two days.

As for the month of December, Portugal received 1.6 million guests with 3.7 million overnight stays, which is an increase of 44.2 per cent and 44.6 per cent respectively compared to 2021 and 1.9 per cent and 5.5 per cent compared to 2019.

The main tourist destination in Portugal that recorded the most nights with about 19.1 million during 2022 was the Algarve. Second place was taken by the Metropolitan area of Lisbon with 17.1 million, while the North region ranked third with 11.5 million.

INE’s forecasts that this year will also have a great start in the Algarve, as the latter has just celebrated its best January in 20 years.

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