Greece Sees Ιnbound Visitors Up, Travel Receipts Down in January 2018

The National Gardens in Athens.

The number of non-resident inbound visitors to Greece in January increased by 16 percent, but revenue from travel receipts declined by three percent year-on-year, the Bank of Greece said on Monday.

According to the data, in January 604,000 tourists visited Greece. The number of visitors from the euro area increased by 3.4 percent to 164,000, while visitors from the non-euro area EU28 countries also rose by 42.5 percent. Specifically, the number of visitors from Germany rose by 21.7 percent to 62,000, as did the number of visitors from France, by 22.1 percent to 8,000. Visitors from the United Kingdom decreased by 4.2 percent to 35,000. regarding non-EU28 countries, the number of visitors from Russia dropped by 84.8 percent to 2,000, whereas the number of visitors from the United States rose by 9.4 percent to 22,000.

The developments in Greece’s inbound tourism resulted to the balance of travel services in January 2018 showing a surplus of 14 million euros, compared with a surplus of 13 million euros in January 2017.

Meanwhile, travel receipts in January 2018 fell by three percent to 153 million euros from 158 million euros in January 2017, while travel payments also dropped by 3.6 percent. According to the Bank of Greece, the drop in travel receipts reflected a 16.3 percent decline in average expenditure per trip. Net receipts from travel services offset 0.7 percent of the goods deficit and accounted for 4.7 percent of total net receipts from services.