Tourists Help Boost Summer Sales Turnover in Athens

Ermou street, Athens. Photo Source: athensattica.com/

Greece’s retail market saw a better performance during this year’s summer sales period than in 2021, according to recent data.

Increased tourist flows boosted sales in some areas, such as the historic center of Athens, and in popular destinations such as Mykonos and Santorini.

However, this year’s performance did not reach the level of turnover of the summer sales period of 2019.

Tourists shopped in Athens

With regard to Athens, research carried out by the Athens Traders Association (ESA) showed that six out of ten businesses saw a profit this year compared to the corresponding period of 2021. However, there were also 21.6 percent of retailers that said their turnover was worse than in 2021.

Furthermore, six in ten retail businesses saw this year’s turnover still significantly below that of 2019.

“The data shows that we did better than last year, but we are still far from surpassing 2019, which is everyone’s only goal,” the association’s president, Stavros Kafounis, said.

According to the data, one in five businesses said they had similar turnover this year compared to 2019 and 14.2 percent made better sales than before the Covid-19 pandemic.

The results of this year’s summer sales period, according to the association , are considerably worse for businesses far from the center of Athens, as well as in regional markets, which are not affected by tourism.

“Tourism undoubtedly contributes to the increase in sales, but we should not rely only on this because the further we move away from areas with tourist flows and rely only on domestic consumption, the more difficult the situation becomes,” Kafounis said.

According to retailers, few Greek consumers took advantage of bargains and made purchases due to the increased costs for food, fuel, electricity, but also vacations.

Moreover, market insiders see Greeks saving money in view of the winter which is expected to be extremely difficult given the constant rise in the price of electricity and natural gas.

The summer sales period wrapped up on August 31. Greece’s commercial stores will hold sales for autumn in November.

According to market insiders, the turnover of this year’s sales in Greece is estimated to be around 4%-5% below the levels of 2019.