Resilience of Rural Tourism in Northern Portugal During the COVID-19 Pandemic

In the pre-pandemic era, tourism was a pivotal sector for economic growth in Northern Portugal. This research aimed to explore the variance in overnight accommodation stays on rural tourism establishments, across pre-pandemic and pandemic periods. It also examined into the seasonality trends of these periods and forecasted future overnight stays in rural tourism settings. This analysis, spanning from January 2017 to January 2024, employs the Feed-Forward Neural Networks to project rural tourism accommodation stays up to January 2025. The findings reveal that rural tourism exhibited a consistent growth trajectory, seemingly unaffected by the pandemic’s disruptions.