August also brought an explosion in Airbnb bookings

By Vickys Kourlibini

The performance of tourism this year has exceeded all expectations. The data of the AirDNA company for our country in August in terms of short-term rentals like Airbnb confirm the explosion of arrivals, but also the closing of the gap compared to 2019, the record year for tourism revenues (they exceeded 18 billion).

The data shows that Greece comes third in a row in the destinations that record the most reservations in the accommodation available for short-term rental, while the increase for August compared to the year before the outbreak of the pandemic reaches 18.7%.

First comes Germany, which for the current month records a 24.8% increase in bookings compared to 2019, and second is Belgium with a 19.3% increase. After Greece comes Austria with an increase of 17% and the last three are occupied by France, Poland and Switzerland with an increase of 15%, 6.2% and 4% respectively.

For the second quarter, Greece shows an increase in bookings by foreign travelers by 116.5% year-on-year. Also in August, more than 1.5 million nights were spent throughout Greece, an increase of 3% compared to the corresponding period of 2019, with an average price of 230 euros. Chania, Kos, Santorini and Corfu are the destinations with the highest demand for short-term rentals this month.

The August figures for short-term rental bookings follow a very strong summer for Greek tourism. Greece had the largest increase in demand for Airbnb short-term rental properties in Europe in June compared to June 2019. Greece was also second in growth in bookings for short-term rentals this summer with a rate of 26.8%, compared to 2019 .

Compared to 2019, Greece, Germany and France achieved the biggest changes in demand, accumulating respectively 27.2%, 26.1% and 17.5% more overnight stays compared to June 2019.

In the meantime, according to the latest data from the Bank of Greece for the six monthsnon-resident traveler arrivals increased by 360.8% and related receipts by 329.3% compared to the corresponding period in 2021, representing 84.9% and 94.7% of their respective levels in 2019. 2 .6 billion euros entered the tourist basket in June alone (60 million less than in 2019), from 806 million last year and only 83 million in 2020.

In the six months, travel receipts already reach 5.1 billion, from 1.2 billion. last year and 733 million in 2020.