Tourism pulling factors in northern portugal: An exploratory approach

;In northern Portugal and, particularly, in the city of Porto, in the period previous to the sanitary crisis COVID-19, tourism has shown to be a key activity for promoting economic development. The purpose of this study was to identify the factors that attract or condition the tourist attractiveness of this territory, thus contributing to identify some critical aspects to keep present in future tourism planning actions. In the treatment of the secondary data used in this research, several statistical methods were used, as multiple linear regressions, analysis of variance (ANOVA) and models for panel data treatment. The period of analysis was the one between 2003 and 2017 and the main sources of data were the Instituto National de Estatistica (INE) and the Marktest Sales Index (2018). In the process of research, we started from a literature review on tourist attractiveness of the territories. The results indicate as factors that attract tourism the supply of tourist accommodation, the existence of art galleries and museums, the income level of the municipalities and the circumstance of a municipality integrating certain tourist routes, such as Caminhos de Santiago or the Vinhos Verdes Route, while the crime rate against people had the effect of repelling visitors. © 2021, Universidade de Aveiro. All rights reserved.