72% of Portuguese people plan to go on vacation this year. Leaving and staying in Portugal, with the same budget, are the options for most of those surveyed. Hotels and rented houses are the main choices.
Most Portuguese (72%) intend to go on vacation this year, with Portugal remaining the destination of choice. According to the survey carried out by Aximage for DN, JN and TSF, 57% of this population intend to spend the same amount as on previous vacations. Hotels and rented houses are the preferred accommodations.
Compared with previous surveys (March 2021 and June 2022), there has been a clear improvement in vacation intentions this year: 72%, compared with 48% and 56%, respectively. On the positive side, respondents in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area (LMA) stand out, with 79% revealing that they intend to go on vacation. Conversely, in the North, 37% of respondents will not be going away.
An analysis by age group shows that the younger the age, the greater the intention to go on vacation – 80% in the 18-34 age group, compared with 62% in the 65+ age group. The higher the income, the higher the proportion of positive responses. Of the 28% who do not intend to go on vacation this year, the vast majority (63%) cite financial reasons.
Going out, coming in
As for their vacation destination, 72% of those questioned said they would choose Portugal, while the remainder would go abroad. By way of comparison, in the survey carried out in March 2021, still reeling from the effects of the pandemic, 90% of those intending to go on vacation had chosen our country as their destination.
With regional asymmetries: in the Porto Metropolitan Area (AMP), a third of those surveyed will go on vacation abroad, compared to 22% in the center. Foreign countries are chosen by 40% of respondents aged 18 to 34.
Hotels are the accommodation of choice for Portuguese people going abroad. Vacations at home remain stable in the surveys analyzed, being chosen by 13% of respondents.
Hotels are the accommodation of choice for Portuguese people going abroad in Portugal. This option was chosen by 29% of respondents, compared with 19% in the survey carried out in June 2022. It is followed by a rented house (22%), which was the main preference last year. Vacations in one’s own home remain stable in the surveys studied, being the option of 13%.
Regionally, 45% of respondents in the south and on the islands who go on vacation in Portugal choose a hotel, while renting a house in the north is equivalent to the hotel option, with 28%. Second-home vacations stand out in AML, where they are chosen by 24% of respondents in this region.
Spending and the crisis
When it comes to spending plans for the festive season, 57% of those surveyed who intend to do so admit to spending the same amount. Only around a fifth intend to spend more, which is still two percentage points down on last year’s results. The Lisbon and Porto metropolitan areas stand out: 22% and 21%, respectively, intend to spend more. In the South and Islands, 64% intend to spend the same, and in the Centre, 27% intend to spend less.
Weighted spending that takes the economic crisis into account. Among those surveyed who intend to go on vacation, 76% say that the crisis has weighed on their decision as to how much to spend. However, this figure is lower than the 82% recorded in the June 2022 survey. The crisis weighs more heavily on the decision of residents of the South and Islands, and less on that of residents of the Centre.
SURVEY DATA SHEET
The survey was carried out by Aximage for DN, TSF and JN, with the aim of assessing Portuguese opinion on issues relating to Portuguese vacations.
Fieldwork took place between May 25 and May 30, 2023, and the response rate was 75.67%. 808 interviews were conducted with people aged over 18 living in Portugal. Quota sampling was carried out, using a matrix crossing gender, age and region (NUTSII), based on the known universe, rebalanced by gender, age group and education. For a probability sample of 808 interviews, the maximum standard deviation of a proportion is 0.017 (i.e. a “margin of error” – at 95% – of 3.4%).
Responsibility for the study: Aximage Comunicação e Imagem, Lda, under the technical direction of Ana Carla Basílio.
