Residents and tourists support tourism growth in the city

Ninety percent of tourists who visit the city say they intend to come back. More than half of the residents in Porto metropolitan area (PMA) argue that tourism has positive effects on the city. These are some of the conclusions taken from a study, called “Economic Sustainability of Tourism in Porto”, carried out by ISAG - European Business School (ISAG-EBS), in partnership with the Research Centre in Business Sciences and Tourism of the Consuelo Vieira da Costa Foundation (CICET-FCVC).

For 80,7% of PMA residents surveyed, “tourism brings more investment for the region”, 87,7% agree that the sector is “important for the city’s economy” and 81,6% assure that “it is one of the main sources of income for the city’s development”.

79,4% agree that “tourism helps creating jobs for the local population” and 68,3% emphasize that “a huge number of inhabitants will lose their jobs if tourism decreases”. Only 4% of the residents believes that the sector has a negative impact on the city. The price of commerce and housing are other negative aspects for the surveyed.

94% recommend a visit to friends and family

In addition to the residents’ opinion, the ISAG-EBS study sought to find out tourists’ opinion about the city, based on a sample of 223 residents outside the PMA or abroad. The degree of general satisfaction with the visit to the city stood at 4,3 values (on an concordance scale of 1 to 5 values), with around 90% of the surveyed saying to be satisfied or very satisfied with the visit to Porto.

“It is therefore understandable why 94% stated that they intend to recommend Porto to friends and family and 90% expressed their intention of coming back to the World's Leading City Destination 2022 and the Europe's Leading City Break Destination 2023”, it can be read in a note from ISAG-EBS.

According to this survey, among the surveyed, 77% said to be in the city as tourists, where they stayed, in average, 4,7 nights, with the majority choosing to stay in a hotel (56%) while 21% stayed in Local Housing units, 11% at friends or family’s house and the remaining 11% in Hostels.

The survey was carried out in November, in several places of the city, with a sample of 901 surveyed, of which 678 live in the region and 223 are foreigners