By Vicky Kourlimbini
The freezing of new tourist bookings recorded with the start of the Russo-Ukrainian war – pan-European, without Greece remaining unaffected – does not continue. Demand is recovering, as is interest in finding holiday destinations, and the prospects for this season are getting better and better.
As shown by an analysis of the Hotelwize platform, which drew data from visits to hotel websites, the main foreign markets for Greek tourism – Germany, the United Kingdom, the USA, France and Italy – are regaining their momentum.
The data were collected from February 14 to April 4 and the results were studied based on the importance of each country for tourism in Greece, according to INSETE data for 2019. More specifically, the ten days 14-23 / 2, 24 / were studied 2-5 / 3, 6-15 / 3, 16-25 / 3 and 26/3 to 4/4.
Forty days after the developments in Europe, the decrease observed in the tourist interest in the total study markets was reduced by 5.5%. During the first ten days, tourist interest fell 23.3%, marking an increase of 7.8% in the second ten days of the analysis. Moving on to the third ten days, the tourist interest seems to be stabilizing, deleting a very small drop of 0.7%, while in the fourth ten days an increase of 15.2% was observed.
All the above markets, the first ten days after the crisis are with a negative sign in terms of tourist interest, but either return after the second ten days or show a significant increase in the 4th ten days.
In particular, the US dominated the second ten days, recording an increase in tourism interest by 22.7%. The upward trend continued in the third ten days with 4.9%, while in the fourth there is a slight decline. Germany fell both in the first (23.3%), the second (6.7%) and the third ten days (13.9%), but in the fourth it increased significantly 22.8%.
In the United Kingdom, in the first ten days of the analysis, tourist interest decreased by -25.7%, while the second increased by 10.8%. The third again showed a drop of 14.3%, however there was a vertical increase in the fourth ten days which reached 20.7%.
It is noted that for Greek tourism, Germany and the United Kingdom are the most important sources of tourists, while the USA is a very important market, with a high cost per visitor. At the beginning of the war, the backwardness of the American market was great.
The other markets
In Italy, a drop of 33.5% was recorded in the first ten days, an increase of 11.4% in the second, which continued in the third with the corresponding percentage reaching 17.9%, reaching 21.3% in the fourth. Finally, in France, after falling 20.4% in the first ten days, tourist interest remained strong in the second, reaching 20.3%. Although it failed to maintain its positive sign in the third (11.9%), in the fourth ten days there was a positive development reaching 6%.
Developments between Russia and Ukraine do not seem to affect the tourist interest of the markets of Turkey, Israel and Canada, where overall the sign is positive. In contrast, countries such as Poland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria and Switzerland show reduced tourist interest.a
Source: Capital
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