Alpha Bank Sees Long-term Growth Prospects for Greek Tourism

Oia, Santorini island, Greece. Photo Source: Visit Greece / Y. Skoulas

Developing new forms of tourism and ensuring value for money are vital to the further prospects of the Greek tourism sector, according to Alpha Bank’s weekly bulletin released on Monday.

The bank’s analysts expressed confidence that the long-term prospects of Greece’s tourist product are positive, with significant margins for further growth regardless of the international economic circumstances.

The report goes on to note however that diversifying the product as well as offering value for cost will be decisive in achieving growth.

Areas with space for expansion include congress, eco, agro, and cultural tourism.

Ancient theater of Epidaurus. Photo Source: Athens & Epidaurus Festival

Alpha Bank additionally emphasizes that procedures fostering entrepreneurship must be simplified and taxation must be rationalized in order to ensure fair competition with tourism ventures in rival markets.

The report points to the challenges for 2019, which include Brexit, geopolitical factors, and Turkey’s dynamic comeback. Citing Bank of Greece data released this month on the sector’s overall performance in 2018, analysts said these affirm the projected upward trend set to continue into the year.

More specifically, the report refers to the main features of the growing demand for Greece’s tourist product over the last six years: five EU countries account for 40 percent of all tourist traffic to Greece; Germany, the UK and Italy are the country’s biggest source markets; average spending per trip has been decreasing gradually over the last decade, but daily expenditure is steady while average duration per trip is also decreasing; the vast majority of traffic  (59 percent) to Greece is reported in the third quarter of the year; five destinations account for 83.9 percent of total tourism traffic in 2017, namely Attica, North Aegean, Crete, Central Macedonia and the Ionian Islands; short-term rentals have more than doubled over the past three years, which may, according to the report, explain the speedier increase in arrivals compared to revenues.

In terms of demand for 2019, Alpha Bank analysts expect a moderate slowdown.