Tourism revenue up 15.2% to €18 billion, Bank of Greece reports
Approximately 27.8 million foreign travelers came to Greece in the period from January to September, with tourism receipts amounting to 17.9 billion euros, the Bank of Greece (BoG) reported on Tuesday. These figures show this year’s tourism beating the 2019 record, which in the same period had recorded 26.9 million travelers leaving 16.1 billion euros in revenue.
Travel receipts grew 15.2% totaling 17.919 billion euros in the January-September period this year, compared with the corresponding period in 2022, with the balance of travel services showing a surplus of 16.071.0 billion, up from a surplus of 14.136.5 billion in the same period of 2022.
More specifically, travel receipts rose by 2.359.7 billion, or 15.2%, to 17.919.5 billion, while travel payments increased by 425.2 million, or 29.9%, to 1.848.5 billion. The rise in travel receipts stemmed from a 17.3% increase in inbound traveler flows, as average expenditure per trip fell by 2.5%. Net travel receipts offset 67.5% of the goods deficit and contributed 85.0% to total net receipts from services.
The increase in travel receipts was due to increases in receipts from residents of the EU27 by 11.7% to 9.981.6 billion and in receipts from residents outside the EU27 by 18.3% to 7.458.8 billion. In particular, receipts from Germany grew by 4.4% to 2.965.7 billion, while receipts from France grew by 10.6% to 1.290.7 billion. Turning to non-EU27 countries, receipts from the United Kingdom rose by 6.8% to 3.014.7 billion. Receipts from the United States increased by 13.5% to 1,115.7 billion, while receipts from Russia dropped by 23.8% to 28.0 million.
In the nine months, the number of inbound travelers rose by 17.3% to 27,790.5 thousand (January-September 2022: 23,686.7 thousand). Specifically, traveler flows through airports grew by 11.7%, while traveler flows through road border-crossing points increased by 36.7%. In the period under review, the number of travelers from within the EU27 rose by 15.0% year-on-year to 16,946.9 thousand and travelers from outside the EU27 increased by 21.2% to 10,843.6 thousand.
The number of travellers from within the euro area rose by 10.0% and travellers from non-euro area EU27 countries increased by 25.2%. Specifically, the number of travelers from Germany grew by 6.5% to 3,855.5 thousand, as did the number of travelers from France, by 5.3% to 1,626.8 thousand.
Turning to non-EU‑27 countries, the number of travellers from the United Kingdom rose by 0.8% to 3,882.4 thousand and travellers from the United States increased by 32.6% to 1,108.0 thousand. Finally, the number of travelers from Russia fell by 3.8% to 30.1 thousand.
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