Greece January-August Travel Receipts Up by 92.1% Over 2021

Year 2022 has seen dynamic tourism recovery for Greece with inbound traveler flows up by 121.8 percent in January-August 2022 over the same period in 2021 generating 12.71 billion euros so far – a 92.1 percent rise in travel receipts, the Bank of Greece said on Monday.

August, meanwhile, may be the best-performing month ever with a 44 percent increase in international arrivals and a 28.1 percent increase in travel receipts to over 4 million euros, compared to the same month last year.

Compared with the respective periods in pre-pandemic 2019, travel receipts were down by 3.6 percent in January-August and by 1.5 percent in August while incoming traveler flows were down by 12.4 percent in January-August 2022 and by 13.3 percent in August 2022.

More specifically, in the eight-month period to August, travel receipts came to 12,749.0 million euros, up by 92.1 percent over the same period in 2021.

For the month of August, travel receipts generated from EU residents increased by 14.0 percent to 2,457.0 million euros and by 58.9 percent from non-EU residents.

Major source markets in January-August were those of Germany with receipts up by 67.6 percent to 2,230.0 million euros, France by 37.2 percent to 1,001.0 million euros, the UK by 173.1 percent to 2,281.8 million euros and the US by 118.1 percent to 723.3 million euros.

Incoming travelers flows in January-August reached 19,126.4 thousand compared to 8,624.1 thousand in the eight-month period in 2021 with flows through airports up by 120.3 percent and through road border-crossing points by 139.6 percent.

The number of inbound travelers in August grew to 5,865.8 thousand: up by 32.2 percent through airports and by 95.6 percent via road border-crossing points.

Again travelers were mostly from Germany, France, the UK and US.

Meanwhile, average spending per trip increased by 10.6 percent in the January‑August 2022 period and by 14.0 percent in August compared to pre-Covid 2019, the BoG said.

Commenting on Greece’s tourism performance so far, Greek Tourism Minister Vassilis Kikilias said he expected occupancy levels to remain high until the end of October for both Athens and the islands with US visitors still visiting Rhodes and Crete.

Kikilias sees tourism-related revenues exceeding initial forecasts of 15 billion euros this year. “I am waiting for the end of the year. The 2022 budget forecasts revenues of 15 billion euros from tourism. Not only have we exceeded this but I assure you that we are significantly higher than the 18.2 billion euros of 2019,” Kikilias said.