The pandemic affected Portuguese tourism exports in a particularly negative way, implying a 57% decline in real terms in 2020. The pre-pandemic level of tourism exports was approximately reached in real terms in 2022 and exceeded by 15% in nominal terms.

Developments in nominal export revenues stand out from that of competitors, which, in a context where the external demand for tourism has not yet recovered the pre-pandemic levels, translated into a market share gain of Portuguese exports. All major source markets contributed to this gain except for the United Kingdom, where a slight loss of market share was recorded. The contributions from Spanish and US tourism stand out. The sector's performance continued to benefit from non-price competitiveness factors, such as the perception of safety, and from price levels in accommodation and restaurant services which are still lower than those of direct competitor countries in the Mediterranean.

For more details see “The performance of services exports” (in Portuguese only), Annual Report of Banco de Portugal, 2022.

Prepared by Ana Correia and Sara Serra. The analyses, opinions and findings expressed above represent the views of the authors and not necessarily those of Banco de Portugal or the Eurosystem.

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