Covid-19 Drives Greece Travel Receipts Down by 73.9% in September

The ongoing Covid-19 health crisis drove inbound traffic to Greece down by 73.9 percent year-on-year in September to 1,335 thousand and travel receipts by 71.4 percent, according to data released this week by the Bank of Greece.

More specifically, the number of passenger arrivals through Greek airports dropped by 63.3 percent and by a massive 95.1 percent through road border-crossing points in September.

The central bank cites the decline to reduced EU (-70.2 percent) and non-EU (-79.9 percent) passenger flows.

Visitors from the euro area fell by 54.7 percent to 767 thousand, while the number of non-euro area travelers fell by 87.9 percent to 179 thousand against 1,483 thousand in the same month a year earlier.

A closer look found the number of visitors from Germany down by 42.3 percent to 377 thousand, from France by 51.8 percent to 113 thousand, from the UK by 54.3 percent to 300 thousand, and from the US by 98.0 percent to 4 thousand.

With regard to spending in September, travel receipts from EU nationals dwindled by 63.9 percent to 572 million euros and for non-nationals by 79.5 percent to 254 million euros from 1,237 million euros in September 2019.

The central bank cites the diminishing figures to a 59.6 percent decline in euro area receipts to 493 million euros compared to 1,220 million euros in September 2019 and to a 78.3 percent drop to 79 million euros in receipts from non-euro area residents.

Indicatively, receipts from Germany dropped by 52.1 percent to 255 million euros, from France by 54.3 percent to 77 million euros, from the UK by 57.8 percent to 192 million euros, and from the US by 98.7 percent to 3 million euros.

Overall, in the January-September period, the number of inbound visitors dropped by 77.2 percent to 6,147 thousand against the same period in 2019 with nine-month travel receipts down by 78.2 percent to 3,509 million euros.