“There is a new market, which we call VFR (visiting friends and relatives) because there are a lot of people foreign people living in Portugal at the moment, who receive many visits from friends and family, which did not exist before the pandemic”.

According to Nuno Costa and reported by Publituris, since the Covid-19 pandemic, there have been several changes in traffic at Lisbon airport, which gained “more than 20% of passengers residing in the Lisbon area but who are foreigners”.

“These are foreigners who are living in Portugal and who have travel needs. Therefore, there is a new market”, added the head of ANA Aeroportos, who was one of the speakers on the panel “What Tourism tomorrow? How many million tourists in 2027? Low cost – an unavoidable business model?”.

The Commercial Director of Aviation at ANA Aeroportos de Portugal considers, therefore, it is necessary “to look at this market and take advantage of the opportunities that these new markets bring”.

Business traffic

But the pandemic also brought changes in terms of business traffic, with Nuno Costa revealing that business traffic “has changed a lot” and has not yet recovered from the impact of Covid-19.

“Covid-19 brought some important changes to passengers. Business traffic has changed a lot. To give an example, through the surveys we do at Lisbon airport, we noticed that business traffic has decreased, the percentage of passengers on business has decreased”, he explained.