Impact of COVID-19 on summer holiday behaviours: evidence from Portugal

The global tourism industry has been affected in an unprecedent manner by the COVID-19 pandemic (Gössling et al., 2020; Hall et al., 2020). The impact was immediate as many countries introduced travel restrictions or closed borders in an attempt to contain its spread, with the situation quickly shifting from over-tourism to non-tourism (Gössling et al., 2020). In the second quarter of 2020 international arrivals declined more than 90%, compared to the previous year’s figure (UNWTO, 2021). Intra-national mobility was relocated during the summer in most European countries (Marques et al., 2021) and the recovery of tourism focused on the domestic market (UNWTO, 2020). This research takes Portugal as a case study. The gradual reopening saw a resumption of tourism, especially in the summer months, driven by domestic demand (INE, 2021; Marques et al., 2021). This accounted for almost 70% of overnight stays in this time interval, when in 2019 it represented around 30% (INE, 2021). The domestic tourism campaign #TuPodes [#YouCan] launched in June 2020 by Turismo de Portugal was an encouraging initiative (UNWTO, 2020). After the traditional June to September summer holidays, it was important to ask in what way and to what extent Portuguese tourists were affected by COVID-19. The aim of this paper is to examine the chosen options and adopted behaviour during the atypical summer holiday period of 2020.