At a time when tourism across the Azores is becoming steadily more international, Terceira Island continues to preserve a distinctive relationship with the Portuguese domestic market. According to the report Tourism Statistics — Autonomous Region of the Azores 2025, published by the Azores Regional Statistics Service (SREA), residents of Portugal accounted for 51.9 percent of all overnight stays in hotels and local accommodations on Terceira, compared with 48.1 percent generated by foreign visitors. The island therefore stood against the dominant regional trend, remaining one of the few places in the archipelago where Portuguese travelers still represented the majority of tourism demand.
That distinction is more than a statistical curiosity. It reveals something important about Terceira’s position within Azorean tourism. While São Miguel and several other islands have become increasingly dependent upon international markets, Terceira continues to draw much of its strength from visitors arriving from mainland Portugal and from other parts of the country. Along with Graciosa, where domestic tourists represented 74.5 percent of overnight stays, Santa Maria, with 56 percent, and Corvo, with 50.8 percent, Terceira remained among the islands where the national market retained a decisive presence in 2025.
Across the Azores as a whole, the structure of tourism has changed considerably. International visitors accounted for approximately 70 percent of all overnight stays in 2025, compared with about 60 percent in 2019, while the domestic market represented the remaining 30 percent. Foreign markets generated around 3.2 million overnight stays, an increase of 7.3 percent compared with 2024, whereas residents of Portugal accounted for approximately 1.4 million overnight stays, a decline of 1.2 percent. The figures confirm that the expansion of Azorean tourism in recent years has been driven primarily by travelers from abroad, even as the domestic market has weakened.
Terceira’s continued dependence upon Portuguese visitors therefore distinguishes it from the regional pattern and carries both advantages and vulnerabilities. The domestic market has historically provided stability, cultural familiarity, and strong seasonal links, particularly through family visits, festivals, institutional travel, and short holidays. Yet Portuguese visitors also tend to remain for shorter periods. According to SREA, foreign tourists stayed an average of 3.67 nights in the Azores in 2025, while Portuguese residents stayed approximately 2.71 nights. A market dominated by shorter stays may generate fewer overnight stays and less spending per visitor, even when arrival numbers remain relatively strong.
The contrast with São Miguel is especially striking. On the largest island, foreign visitors represented 75.3 percent of overnight stays, while the domestic market accounted for only 24.7 percent. This reflects São Miguel’s greater international air connectivity, larger hotel capacity, broader tourism infrastructure, and stronger visibility in global markets. Terceira, by comparison, remains more closely tied to national travel patterns and to the availability and affordability of air connections with Lisbon and Porto.
Among international visitors, the United States was Terceira’s leading foreign market, generating 10.1 percent of all overnight stays. The North American market also led on São Miguel, Santa Maria, and Graciosa, reflecting the deep historic and emotional connections between the Azores and their diaspora in the United States and Canada. On other islands, Germany assumed greater importance, particularly on Pico, Faial, São Jorge, and Corvo, while the Spanish market was especially prominent on Flores.
The report also reveals a mixed picture for Terceira’s accommodation sector. In traditional hotel establishments, overnight stays declined slightly by 0.6 percent compared with 2024. Even so, the island maintained one of the highest bed occupancy rates in the Region at 43.2 percent, suggesting that its hotel sector continued to perform relatively well despite the modest reduction in demand. Local accommodation moved in the opposite direction, with overnight stays increasing by 3.6 percent, part of a broader growth trend in this segment across all nine islands.
These numbers suggest that Terceira’s tourism model is not stagnant, but it is evolving differently from that of the Azores as a whole. Its strong domestic base remains an important asset, particularly at a moment when international markets can be affected by exchange rates, geopolitical instability, airline decisions, and changing travel preferences. A loyal Portuguese market can provide continuity and emotional connection that purely international destinations sometimes lack. At the same time, the island’s dependence on domestic tourism makes it especially vulnerable to rising airfares, reductions in flight capacity, and declining purchasing power among Portuguese households.
The challenge for Terceira is therefore not to abandon the national market in pursuit of international growth, but to achieve a more balanced structure of demand. The domestic market should be protected, cultivated, and better understood, while international promotion continues to expand. Stronger connections with the United States and Canada, the development of cultural and heritage tourism, the promotion of Angra do Heroísmo as a UNESCO World Heritage city, and greater emphasis on gastronomy, festivals, nature, and military and Atlantic history could help extend stays and diversify visitor profiles.
Terceira possesses a tourism identity that is difficult to reproduce elsewhere. It combines an internationally recognized historic city with living popular traditions, volcanic landscapes, extraordinary coastal areas, agricultural heritage, music, theater, religious festivals, and a long history of contact between Europe and North America. Its appeal does not depend upon a single attraction or market. Yet converting that richness into longer stays and more sustainable economic benefits requires strategic promotion, reliable air access, competitive pricing, and a coherent effort among public authorities, tourism organizations, airlines, and local businesses.
The SREA report shows that Azorean tourism continued to grow and diversify in 2025, consolidating its recovery from the pandemic while beginning to slow toward the end of the year—a tendency that continued into 2026. Within that broader story, Terceira occupies a singular place. It remains one of the islands where Portuguese visitors still form the heart of tourism activity, even as the archipelago increasingly turns toward the wider world.
That enduring connection should not be interpreted as a weakness. It is a foundation. The task is to build upon it without becoming confined by it—to preserve the loyalty of those who already know and love Terceira, while inviting new travelers to discover why this island, shaped by history, hospitality, and the Atlantic, deserves not merely to be visited, but to be experienced slowly and remembered for a lifetime.
Based on a story in Diário Insular-José Lourenço, director. Photo also from DI.
