Greeks Prefer Trips Abroad

Greek tourists prefer to travel abroad rather than spend their holidays at home as they consider Greece too expensive as opposed to competing tourist destinations.

According to recent figures, last winter Greeks spent over one billion euros during their trips, which is a 16 percent increase over the corresponding period the year before. Proceeds from Greek tourism reached two billion euros – an increase of only eight percent over 2007.

More specifically, the Bank of Greece recorded receipts from tourism for the first five months of 2008, which reached some 2.1 billion euros. This is an increase of 8.2 percent compared with the same 2007 period, during which revenues amounted to 1.9 billion euros.

This increase exceeded the rise in arrivals of 2.5 percent during the same period.

But the foreign exchange spent by Greek tourists on trips abroad during the first five months of 2008 reached 1.1 billion euros (against 943 million euros in 2007) and presented a 16 percent increase in revenues.

The figures suggest that Greeks prefer to travel within ‘dollar destinations’ due to the considerable difference concerning the dollar-euro exchange rate.

According to the released data, the U.S. seems to remain the traditional overseas market for Athenians, which has produced high growth rates over the past years.