Tourism: Which islands have already broken 2019 records in arrivals

Her Vicky Kurlibini

Rhodes, Kos, Chania, Corfu, Zakynthos, Kefalonia, Mykonos and Santorini are the islands where international air arrivals have already surpassed the performance of 2019, the year when the last record for Greek tourism was recorded, for seven months. Comparisons are made with this year, given the travel restrictions and pandemic measures of the previous two years.

According to data from the Civil Aviation Service and the Athens International Airport, which INSETE processed in the latest statistical report (for August), the arrivals at Chania airport from the beginning of the year until July amounted to 736 thousand presenting increase of +80 thousand/+12.2%.

At Rhodes airport, 1.4 million international air arrivals were recorded, showing an increase of +122 thousand/+9.6% and at Kos airport, international air arrivals were 662 thousand, recording an increase of +21 thousand/+3.3 %.

At Mykonos airport there was an increase of +65 thousand/+24.5% while international air arrivals reached 329 thousand and at Santorini airport 452 thousand arrivals were recorded, showing an increase of +158 thousand/+53.8%.

In Corfu, international air arrivals reached 930 thousand showing an increase of +110 thousand/+13.4% and in Aktio international air arrivals reached 211 thousand showing an increase of +41 thousand/+24.0%.

The trend is increasing in Zakynthos and Kefalonia where 495 thousand and 201 thousand arrivals were recorded, showing an increase of +13 thousand/+2.6% and +13 thousand/+6.7% respectively.

Finally, at the airport of Skiathos, air arrivals reached 130 thousand, recording an increase of +24 thousand/+22.9%. At the remaining airports, international air arrivals were lower than 60 thousand.

In the seven months, 2.9 million international air arrivals were recorded at Athens International Airport, showing a decrease of -661 thousand/-18.6%. It was followed by the airport of Thessaloniki, where 1.1 million international air arrivals were recorded, showing a decrease of -237 thousand/-17.9%.

At Heraklion airport, a marginal decrease of -11 thousand/-0.6% was recorded, while international air arrivals reached 1.8 million.

In July overall the increase in airports was 9.6% and international air arrivals were 4.2 million.

With a positive sign, Rhodes, Kos, Chania, Corfu, Zakynthos and Kefalonia were once again positive, while the rise is big for the airports of Mykonos and Santorini.

However, the picture is different when it comes to road arrivals. In the period January-July 2022, a decrease was recorded by all neighboring countries in relation to the corresponding period of 2019. In particular, the largest decrease in absolute differences was recorded by Bulgaria by -1.4 million/-50.3%, while there were 1.4 million road arrivals followed by North Macedonia with the decrease amounting to -370 thousand/-19.5% with 1.5 million road arrivals. The decrease from Turkey amounted to -247 thousand/-50.3% as road arrivals amounted to 244 thousand, while the biggest improvement was recorded by Albania which recorded a decrease of -240 thousand/-24.4% with the road arrivals to be 747 thousand.

How’s the revenue going?

According to the BoE data for the six months, travel receipts showed a decrease of -5.3% compared to the corresponding period of 2019 and amounted to €5.126 billion. This development is due to the increase in receipts from residents of the EU-27 countries by 6.3%, which amounted to €2,981 million, as there was a decrease of 16.8% from residents of countries outside the EU-27. with receipts amounting to 2,029 billion

The feeling that exists among tourism entrepreneurs is that both July and August went very well in terms of revenue, due to the increased tourist traffic and they expect the results of the Central Bank to come out that the scissors compared to 2019, when they had flowing into the tourist basket just over 18 billion euros will eventually be closed. After all, the occupancies recorded in the popular destinations were very high, even reaching fully booked in the middle of August.