INSETE: Tourism revenues to get worse before getting better
After another record year for tourism in 2019, revenues are expected to take longer to recover from this year’s coronavirus pandemic than arrival numbers, according to a special report released on Thursday by the Institute of the Greek Tourism Confederation (INSETE). That recovery will also be uneven for Greek tourism in terms of regions and domains, it added.
The definitive data published on Thursday by the Bank of Greece showed that travel receipts came to 18.179 billion euros in 2019, posting a 13 percent increase from 2018. That increase is mainly attributed to the rise in average spending per trip by 48 euros, or 9.9 percent, to 535 euros, against 486 euros in 2018, and the 2.8 percent growth in incoming traffic of non-residents.
In its report, INSETE predicts that the recovery of revenues will depend on the course of the coronavirus crisis and cannot be expected before next year. “The duration of the crisis cannot be determined with precision as previous crises have shown, given also the fact that the current crisis has very peculiar characteristics,” the report says.
It stresses that revenue losses this year will be considerable given the complete loss of the second quarter and possibly most of the third, which are the most significant for Greek tourism. In 2019, Q1 accounted for 4 percent of annual tourism revenues, Q2 for 26 percent, Q3 for 59 percent and Q4 for 11 percent.
