“Tourism has had in Portugal a very favourable evolution in recent years and for good and for bad reasons. The bad reasons include the crisis in the eastern Mediterranean that has diverted to Portugal – a safe port – many tourists otherwise spread across more countries,” said the minister.

Caldeira Cabral added that these “bad reasons” were, in any case, beyond any control of the country even if effectively bringing it benefits.

The economy minister was more fulsome as regards the “good” reasons for which tourism has been experiencing decent growth in recent years including not only the quality of destinations but also the quality of the companies in the sector.

Companies “have known how to invest in boosting capacity and quality whilst there have been legislative simplifications and opening up the scope to improve on the range of local tourism services”, said Caldeira Cabral.

The minister said the outlook for 2016 was up on last year based both on higher levels of reservations at this stage in the year and the good performance of sector indicators thus far.