Structure and geography of the distribution of the incoming tourist flow in Portugal

Abstract

Portugal was in the group of European countries in which the volume of inbound tourist flow collapsed most significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the reasons for this was the presence of only one land neighbor of the country — Spain, which at the same time is not even the leader in the number of overnight stays of foreign tourists in Portugal. This determines the relevance of studying the structure of the incoming tourist flow and the geographical features of the distribution of tourists from different countries in Portugal. The novelty of the study is determined by the use in the course of the analysis of the tourist attraction index, calculated as the ratio of the number of tourists arriving from a certain country and the size of its population. Together with Spain, the leading group in terms of tourist flow to Portugal includes such countries as Great Britain, France and Germany. They are slightly inferior to Brazil and the United States. As a result of the study, four main models of the distribution of tourist flow across the country were identified: Spanish (neighboring), British (strong resort-oriented), German (weak resort-oriented) and Brazilian (“distant relative”). Thanks to the calculation of the tourist attraction index, it was possible to identify small countries for which travel to Portugal is significant, although they occupy a small share in the structure of the incoming tourist flow due to their small population. These are countries such as Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Denmark, Malta and Finland. At the same time, Brazil and the United States are only in the third and fourth ten countries according to the rating in accordance with the value of the tourist attraction index.