Road Tourism to Greece Slow in January-June

Road tourism to Greece is still lagging behind compared to air travel which managed to recoup 2019 levels in June, according to data released this week by INSETE, the Greek Tourism Confederation’s (SETE) research body.

More specifically, road tourism to Greece in June was down by 32.2 percent over pre-Covid 2019 levels for the same month and by 41.3 percent year on year.

Arrivals by road through border crossing points were down by 7.6 percent in May and by 18.3 percent so far in the year while related revenue was down by 9.7 percent in May and by 12. 2 percent over the year.

A total of 2.4 million travelers visited Greece by road in the first half of the year compared to 4 million in January-June 2019, down by 41.3 percent or 1.7 million arrivals.

In the first half of the year, only two of Greece’s border points marked increases: Doriani by 8.6 percent to 117,000 arrivals and Ormenio by 15.8 percent to 136,000.

In terms of source markets, travelers from Turkey were down by 58.6 percent to 155,842 arrivals by road against 2019, followed by visitors from Bulgaria which dropped by 55.1 percent to 766,677 arrivals compared to 1.7 million in 2019. Incoming arrivals via road from Northern Macedonia and Albania were down by 25.9 percent.

Tourism to Greece has so far been driven by air travel which brought a total of 22.4 million passengers to the country in the first six months of the year marking a 269.1 percent increase over the same period in 2021 and recouped 90.6 percent of passenger traffic compared to the first half (H1) of 2019, the Hellenic Civil Aviation Authority (HCAA) said last month.