Over 15 days, a total of 1,172 people completed our survey, which was designed to help us to get an insight into not only who our readers are but also into how they live in Portugal.

Who are you?


The majority of our respondents are aged between 41 and 65 years old (56 percent) and are mainly British (57 percent), however a broad range of nationalities read The Portugal News including North Americans, Portuguese, Dutch and Swedish according to the survey. 47 percent of readers are retired and 19 percent self employed with a further 11 percent a company director or senior manager.


For the respondents of the survey, when it comes to what is most attractive about Portugal, the quality of life in the country tops the list (25 percent) but this is closely followed by the favourable climate at 24 percent and the Portuguese people at 21 percent, followed by the cost of living (14 percent).

Eating Out


Eating out proves to be very popular with readers, with 61 percent eating out at least once or twice a week and 15 percent of these eating out on most days.


When it comes to what they choose to eat, readers are most likely to choose a Portuguese restaurant (average 75.4 percent) with Italian (average 53 percent) and Indian restaurants (average 50.3 percent) following close behind.


The price of a meal out is always an important factor and most people (average 61.7 percent) would be likely to plump for a mid priced restaurant while an average of 58.8 percent of people would be likely to opt for a budget restaurant. Meanwhile 23 percent of readers had special dietary requirements including being vegan, vegetarian, gluten free and lactose free.

Services


With many readers travelling to Portugal by plane, survey respondents found easyJet to offer the best service from Faro airport (28 percent), followed by Ryanair 24 percent.


915 of people reported to use banks in Portugal, with the most popular being Millennium BCP bank (25 percent) followed by Santander with 17 percent.


When it comes to health, 38 percent of readers choose to use public health care in the Algarve and 26 percent of respondents said they instead use Private HPA hospitals in the region.


The top supermarket with readers was Continente with 27 percent stating it is their favourite supermarket, followed by Pingo Doce in second position with 17 percent and Lidl in third with 16 percent.

The Portugal News


At The Portugal News we are constantly working to improve our reader satisfaction, so feedback is key to being able to give our readers what they want in the paper. We are very proud to report that the satisfactory rate of news coverage in the paper stands at 79.3 percent, while 41 percent of respondents say that they feel the paper had improved in the last 12 months.


The news section is the most popular area of the paper with an average of 72.4 percent of respondents being likely to reach for the news pages, followed by an average of 63.5 percent enjoying the features and being likely to read these.


The majority of respondents pick up their paper from a supermarket stand (42 percent) however, increasingly more of our readers are finding our news online, with 72 percent of people visiting theportugalnews.com weekly and 20 percent of those visiting daily, while an average of 50.9 percent of respondents access our news through Facebook.


At the end of the online survey respondents were offered the opportunity to enter our prize draw and the winners will be announced in an upcoming edition.