Greek tourism is ‘multi-speed’ – Towards a record revenue of 20 billion euros this year

Greek tourism is expected to achieve record revenues this year, even approaching 20 billion euros, compared to 18.3 billion euros in 2019.

The causes are many, the main one being the rise in prices in hotels, short-term rentals, air and ferry tickets.

This year’s feature is the absence of markets such as the Chinese, Russian and Ukrainian, in contrast to the strengthening of markets such as the American.

At the same time, according to industry analysts, tourism in Greece continues to be “multi-speed”, that is to say, there is a difference in performance between island and mainland Greece, with the main characteristic being:

– The discrepancy between air and road arrivals. Air arrivals were down 8.1% in the first half, while road arrivals were down 41.3%.

– Between islands and destinations. In June, an increase in passenger traffic was shown, among others, by the airports of Santorini with 21.5%, Corfu with 12.4% and Mykonos with 9.9%.

On the contrary, Thessaloniki closed with a decrease of 11.4%, Kavala with 22.2% and Mytilini with 10%.

Also, the hotel occupancy rates in individual areas of Athens and Thessaloniki present a different picture.

In Athens, Syntagma, Plaka and the “Athenian Riviera” show great momentum, with EXAAA asserting that there is no “overbooking”, underlining that, the first semester, closed with a 21.7% decrease in occupancy and 15.5% in revenue per available room (RevPar), but with a positive average room rate of 7.9%.

Correspondingly, the Thessaloniki Hotel Association asserted that, in the first half of 2022 and compared to the corresponding period of 2019, a 25% decrease is observed, with 273,383 fewer overnight stays.

Rising revenues, but also expanding expenses for the tourism industry

Overall, based on June and July performance, August and September bookings and the addition of rooms by major tour operators, combined with airline agreements to extend the tourist season and winter, revenue forecasts are exceeding the 2019 figures.

It is indicative that the president of the Association of Greek Tourism Enterprises, Yiannis Retsos from Corfu, where he was recently for the presentation of the national plan for Tourism 2030, estimated that if nothing changes, we may pass the 2019 revenues.

“However, it will not be the same result for businesses, because we have an increase in energy costs, in consumables, in borrowing costs as a result of inflation and the policy of central banks with increasing interest rates,” he said.

“The particularly positive image of incoming travel traffic and the upward trend of bookings for the rest of the season show that Greek tourism is recovering strongly compared to the previous 2 years.

Greece has responded better than any other European destination under difficult conditions, taking advantage of the fact that it has the fifth strongest tourism brand worldwide,” he added.

2019 was a record year for Greek tourism, with revenues of over 18 billion euros and more than 30 million arrivals from abroad.

The assessment of the former president of SETE, Andreas Andreadis, was similar, that it is very likely that this year tourism revenues will approach 20 billion euros (+10% compared to 2019).