Data compiled by a company that arranges tax refunds for tourists that shop in Portugal, Global Blue, indicate that each Chinese that visited Portugal last year spent, on average, €671 (about US$763) on duty-free goods, 4.5 percent more than the year before, Diário de Notícias reports.
The Portuguese newspaper says that even though only a small proportion of tourists visiting Portugal last year were Chinese, they spent 9 percent of all the money that foreigners spent in the shops there, and that only Brazilians and Angolans spent more.
However, the suspension of direct flights between Beijing and Lisbon since last October may make Portugal less attractive to Chinese tourists, the report quotes a Global Blue executive, Renato Leite, as saying.
In January a Portuguese newspaper, Jornal Económico, quoted TAP Chairman Miguel Frasquilho as saying a return air service between Lisbon and Beijing via the central Chinese city of Xi’an would begin in February or March this year.
