The report rates each country individually covers four sub-indexes, 14 pillars, and 90 individual indicators, distributed among the different pillars these range from the environment, trade, price competitiveness, employment, social conditions etc.

Closely aligned to this is the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) – Economic Impact of Travel and Tourism summary report for 2015, which concludes that in the last two years the world has been facing geopolitical tensions from the Middle East and Ukraine to South-East Asia, growing terrorism threats and fear of the spread of global pandemics. Should they persist, these global challenges could have significant further repercussions on the Travel and tourism industry, as they touch on the pre-condition for the sector to grow and develop-the ability of people to travel safely.

To date, the effect of such events on travel & tourism has been mixed. While some countries have witnessed significant decreases in the number of international visitors, other destinations have remained unaffected.

Interestingly, it is notable that the travel and tourism sector has actually continued to grow over these past years and according to the Portugal study report by the WTTC all economic factors within the industry are forecast to grow this year. The WTTC report is good news for Portugal.

Noteworthy in the WEF report is that of the 19 factors for each country, Portugal’s highest rating is for Safety and Security, compared for instance with “International Openness” where it is placed 72nd and Health and Hygiene at 35th place.

Apart from the crime impacting on business costs, the report rates the “reliability of the Police Service, placing Portugal in 29th place; the most reliable police service being Finland followed by New Zealand. The UK is rated 26th place, Spain 20th and France 30th.

As expected in terms of terrorism, Portugal rates highly at 7th place in terms of the impact on business costs, and in terms of the number of homicides is at 30th place.