New record of North American tourists in Portugal registered in September
according to INE, in that month there were more than 204 thousand guests from the USA, thus becoming the third outbound market with the most impact on our tourism.
Only the UK and Spanish markets had a higher number of guests, with 262 thousand guests and 213 thousand guests respectively.
Thus, the North American tourist market represents a weight of around 10% of global tourism in Portugal.
Regarding the number of overnight stays, it already represents a slice of 2.6 million overnight stays from the total of 38.8 million overnight stays accumulated during the year.
This influx of tourists from the US started to have some meaning just before the pandemic. In 2019 there was a growth of 52% compared to 2017.
However, in the post-pandemic period, visitors from the United States began to break arrival records as early as March.
North American tourists prefer Lisbon, the North and the Algarve
According to data from Turismo de Portugal, Lisbon is the destination of choice for North Americans, with 1.1 million overnight stays recorded in the first eight months of this year.
Also on this podium are the North region with 393 thousand overnight stays and the Algarve with 258 thousand overnight stays.
Overnight stays from foreigners still below 2019
However, despite the growth we reported in previous article, overnight stays from foreigners are down from the same pre-pandemic period by around 6.3%.
