“The central bank confirmed that 2014 was the best year ever for tourism in Portugal and one when every record got broken” said Nunes at a purpose called press conference.


The state secretary went onto highlight how hotels had managed to transform 11% 2014 growth in the number of nights spent, to 46.1 million, into a 12.8% surge in turnover “which means that each night spent was more profitable and that growth is not coming at the cost of low prices.”


The tourism sector thus made a €7 billion contribution to Portugal’s trade balance and was responsible for offsetting some 80% of the trade deficit in tangible goods.


Nunes was also clear as to how these results came about: “the fewer politicians that a company encounters on the way, the more tourists they are able to bring to Portugal.”


In other figures from the Bank of Portugal on Monday, remittances returned to the country by Portuguese emigrants also had a good year in 2014 rising by 1.3% to come in at €3.057 billion against outflows from Portugal of €534.8 million, an annualised rise of 3.8%.


France and Switzerland accounted for the lion’s share of this total with Portuguese residents in these two countries responsible for sending back €882 million and €812 million, respectively.