Record in annual arrivals, too
A record number of foreign visitors, in addition to receipts, will be recorded by Greek tourism for 2023, as expected, making this year a new year of reference for the sector, as both arrivals and receipts exceed the hitherto record figures of 2019.
According to the data from the Bank of Greece, in January-October 2023, inbound travel traffic increased by 17% compared to the same period last year, while it was only 415,000 visitors away from the total number in 2019.
In the first 10 months of 2023 inbound travel traffic was set at 30.933 million visitors. For the whole of 2019, inbound travel traffic was 31.348 million people (the traffic in December 2019 alone was 692,000 travelers). Based on the growth rate recorded and reduced to the total of the year, foreign visitors are expected to reach or even exceed 32 million this year.
Travel receipts in the first 10 months of 2023 amounted to 19.612 billion euros according to the data of the Bank of Greece, surpassing the corresponding receipts of the entire 2019 (€18.2 billion) by €1.4 billion euros. Given that receipts are growing at a double-digit rate compared to 2019, and that in that year the revenues in November and December were in the order of €600 million, the estimates see the receipts from foreign visitors to the country for the whole of this year reaching €20.2-20.3 billion. The increase in travel receipts in January-October is however thanks to the yearly increase in inbound travel traffic by 17%, while the average expenditure per trip decreased by 2.5%.
In visitor terms, in January-October traffic from Germany increased to 4.543 million travelers, while that from France increased to 1.782 million travelers. Traffic from the UK increased marginally from 2022 to 4.491 million travelers, while that from the US increased significantly by 30% to 1.268 million travelers.
Notably, these BoG figures do not include cruise arrivals, beyond those recorded by the Border Survey – i.e. those entering the country to start their cruise.
