CASE STUDIES

According to the Bank of Portugal (2014), the tourism sector aggregates companies that operate in the economic activity sub-segments of ???Hotels and Restaurants??? [HR], ???Recreational and Cultural Activities??? [RCA] and ???Transports and Logistics??? [TL].

The characterisation of the Portuguese touristic companies follows those sub-segments and will be presented with the analysis of the Iberian Balance sheet Analysis System (SABI) database where, despite not being present the totality of the national companies, represent those who have the obligation to present organized accounting (IES) and where available and active in the SABI database in 31 of July of 2018, representing about 80% of the total companies in the sector (Bank of Portugal, 2016), focusing on the period 2006-2016 since this was the available period for analysis in the database.

Analysing the total number of active companies, in the period 2006-2016, it was verified that, in 2016, about 44.123 companies were active, more 21.996 companies than those active companies verified in the year 2006, what represents an increase of about 99.4% under the decade in analysis (figure 1). In the same period, the number of workers follows the growth in the number of active companies and, in 2016, the sector employed 258.959 workers, a growth of 166,76% when compared with the year of 2006 (figure 1).

Figure 1: Evolution of the Portuguese tourism active companies and tourism workers

Source: Own elaboration based on SABI database

Analysing the structure of the active national tourist companies, by sub-segment of economic activity in the period 2006-2016, its observed that the “Hotels and Restaurants” sub-segment is the most representative since it represents, on average, about 68,3% of the total companies for the studied period, followed by the “Transports and Logistics” sub-segment which represented about 22,3% of the companies and lastly, the “Recreational and Cultural Activities” sub-segment that represented about 9,3% of the total active tourism companies. We also verify, for the same period, a continuous growth in the representation of active companies in the ???Recreational and Cultural Activities??? and in the ???Hotels and Restaurants??? sub-segments and a decrease in the “Transports and Logistics” sub-segment (figure 2).

Figure 2: Portuguese tourism active companies (in %), by sub-segment of economic activity (2007-2016)

Source: Own elaboration based on SABI database

Analysing the sector by region NUT II, comparing 2006 and 2016, we verify, in 2016, a decrease in the number of active companies in the regions of Algarve, Lisbon and Autonomous Region of Madeira and an increase in the remaining regions. Regarding to the annual turnover, in the same period, the regions of Lisbon, Autonomous Region of Madeira and Autonomous Region of Azores had a small decrease when comparing to the increase in the remaining regions (figure 3).

Figure 3: Structure of the Portuguese tourism sector, by NUT II (2006 and 2016)

Source: Own elaboration based on SABI database

Concluding, when we compare the year 2006 and 2016, the ???Hotels and Restaurants??? sub-segment aggregates most of the sector active companies and also the majority of the workers, although, the annual turnover is dispersed into ???Hotels and Restaurants??? sub-segment and into ???Transports and Logistics??? sub-segment. The ???Recreational and Cultural Activities??? sub-segment has grown in the number of active companies but decreased in the annual turnover and number of workers (figure 4).

Figure 4: Structure of the Portuguese tourism sector, by sub-segment of economic activity (2006 and 2016)

Source: Own elaboration based on SABI database

Legend: HR – Hotels and Restaurants; RCA – Recreational and Cultural Activities; TL – Transports and Logistics