August fetched over €4 bln
It was probably the best ever month in the history of Greek tourism in terms of revenues
August 2022 was one of the top two months ever in terms of tourism takings. Provisional Bank of Greece data showed on Friday that it was the second most profitable month of all time, but sources involved in the process of collecting the relevant data estimate that the final figures will be adjusted higher, to rank August 2022 at the very top.
According to the central bank’s provisional data on the August balance of payments, the arrivals of non-resident travelers in Greece this year increased compared to last year by 44%, while the related receipts increased by 28.1% compared to August 2021.
Travel receipts in August this year amounted to 4.04 billion euros compared to €3.15 billion in the corresponding month of 2021 and €4.1 billion in August 2019. August of that year, the last before the pandemic, is also an all-time record in terms of travel receipts. Compared to August 2019, this year’s arrivals in the same month appear 13.2% lower. However, these temporary data from the Bank of Greece are not consistent with the corresponding data from the country’s airports, the same sources report, so it is estimated the final count will be even higher.
Even so, they are an excellent record for Greek tourism, especially when considering the problems and the depth of the travel crisis triggered by the pandemic from the beginning of 2020 until this year. This performance comes on the heels of record revenues for July set this year: BoG data showed receipts in July 2022 amounted to €3.723 billion, marginally increased by +0.56% from July 2019, a month that also held the previous record with receipts of €3.702 billion. However, arrivals this year in July were 7% down on the same month of 2019, namely 5.27 million visitors compared to 5.67 million three years earlier. In other words, fewer foreign travelers left more money.
The average expenditure per traveler increased from €652.5 in July 2019 to €705 this year, i.e. an 8% growth. Market sources note that this percentage is justified not only by the higher spending of visitors but also by inflation.
