Building Resilient Tourism Systems: The Strategic Role of Financial Sustainability in Portuguese Tourism Firms

This study examines the economic and financial sustainability of Portuguese tourism firms operating within Division 55 (Accommodation) and Division 56 (Food and Beverage Service Activities), using Return on Assets (ROA) as the central indicator of economic and financial sustainability to assess variations over time, across firm sizes and among regions. Drawing on a dataset of 8,735 firms and 113,559 observations from 2011 to 2023, the analysis relies on ROA due to its analytical robustness and suitability for longitudinal and cross-sectional comparison. Given the absence of normality and homogeneity of variances, robust statistical techniques were applied, namely Welch’s ANOVA and the Games-Howell post hoc test with bootstrapping, to ensure reliable inference. The findings reveal significant differences in financial sustainability over the study period, between firms of different sizes and across regions. Small firms record higher average ROA than micro, medium or large firms, while the Algarve emerges as the highest-performing region and the Autonomous Region of the Azores presents the weakest results. The study is limited by its exclusive reliance on quantitative financial indicators, without incorporating qualitative dimensions that might enrich understanding of sustainability drivers, and by the constraints posed by data non-normality. The results emphasise the need for policy measures tailored to regional characteristics and highlight the pivotal role of small firms in resilience in the tourism sector. The study adds value by providing a rigorous, longitudinal and regionally differentiated analysis of financial sustainability within the Portuguese tourism industry.Acknowledgements: This work was supported by FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, I.P. by project reference UNIAG, UID/04752/2025DOI: https://doi.org/10.54663/2182-9306.2026.SpecialIssueCMTH.96-110